Wow. Conventionette and I just had the pleasure of hearing Ann Coulter speak--and I'm still in shock. I want to preface this post by saying that every person who was at the speech today and applauded at some of the things she had to say (especially all of the comments about the Muslim religion) - you should be ashamed of yourselves. I was taken aback at the amount of applause Ms. Coulter received when she referred to Muslims as "rag heads." It is disappointing to see that such divisive and incendiary comments were welcomed with such gusto from the crowd.

Her speech today jacked up the crazy conservative meter straight to ten; it was without a doubt the most highly attended speaking event that Conventionette and I have seen thus far at the event, any everyone was in a fervor to see the spokeswoman of (to use a phrase of another conservative) "bass-ackward" conservatism. The two guys sitting next to us were die-hard Coulter fans, so we pandered to their misguided love and got them to talk to us a little about Ann. One thing that I still have trouble grasping is why so many people think Coulter is so attractive (as these two clearly did), because she's super bony and I swear today when she was speaking I saw an Adam's apple. But this is beside the point.

Aside from a more aggressive stance on enforcing love for America across the world through the use of war, Coulter went through the typical conservative channels, as I'm sure she knew this would get the best response from the crowd--she sure does love those applause--attacking (among others) Hilary Clinton, the "mainstream media," and the Middle East. Her speech about going to war with Syria was pretty popular with the crowd, as well. Moving on to less weighty issues, she mentioned that she was glad conservatives had all the pretty girls--a comment which Conventionette was especially happy about. But then again I'm sure Coulter didn't expect any progressives in the crowd.

Most infuriating were Coulter's comments about the Muslim faith. I daresay she spent the longest part of her speech just demonizing Muslims, focusing on the recent events with the comics of Mohammed in Denmark. Amidst laughter and applause, Coulter made several jokes about the violent nature of the Muslim faith and its followers. I myself am not Muslim, but I was still insulted by how well received these comments were. The youths around us were eating it up, jabbering about how great she and her comments were.

The low point for me was during the Q and A session when a young man from Muslims for America came up and very respectfully requested that she not use the term "rag heads." He argued for the peaceful way in which many Muslims live their lives, and really just didn't want her to use such a hateful term to describe a religion whose majority is not violent or malevolent. I was moved, and I applauded as loud as I could for the guy.

But I'm not exaggerating when I say that Coulter's response put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day; she basically told him "Well, I make a couple jokes about Muslims, and they kill 3000 Americans--fair trade." It was, in short, appalling. Reader, if ever you find yourself wondering "why do these fundamentalist Muslims hate us so much?" You can be sure that hateful opinions such as this and hateful people such as Coulter are a cause.

I made sure to head down to the Muslims for America booth after the speech was over to shake the kid's hand and let him know not all Americans think that way (not the ones trying to sell books, anyway). He handled everything with great poise--even telling Ann "thank you" after her disrespectful response to his request. Afterward, we talked for a bit--he was a pretty cool dude.

Anyway, back to Angry Annie--Conventionette and I brought a tape recorder with us to the conference, and we recorded both Coulter's speech and the Q and A session. Check back on the site later for Conventionette's post on Coulter, as she has the tape recorder and will be providing some quotes from the event that are nothing short of shocking.

In closing, I just want to say that Coulters speech and the response of the attendees both depressed and angered me. I didn't really care for her before, but now I can say without hesitation that I think she is an abhorrent human being. Not because she is a conservative, so right-wingers that may be reading this, don't get your undies in a bunch--rather I say this because Coulter is a person who resorts to incendiary, malicious comments and attacks in order to pander her image to the crowd.

While I'm sure that this will help her sell more copies of her next book, it does absolutely nothing positive for a country she supposedly claims to love.