Ann Coulter's Craziest Moments

As the U.S. was in the process of being eliminated from the World Cup finals last week, professional troll Ann Coulter wrote another anti-soccer creed, dismissing it as “a game for girls” and, bizarrely, “a game for beret-wearers.” She published the article on her own 1997-pastiche website, and really, it's not an article so much as a soccer-hating stream-of-consciousness. To call it a “rant” would be both overstating Coulter’s elegance and insulting the dignity of rants. Still, the piece managed to insult plenty of fans, and got her name in the news — once again.

Of course, that seems to be Coulter’s only goal since becoming a public figure in the mid-90s: Attracting negative attention to herself. It’s a strange compulsion, but judging by the overwhelmingly negative response Coulter receives for just about everything she says, it’s just about the only explanation for her behavior. From her calls to strip women of the right to vote to her trotting out the F-word in reference to John Edwards, she always crafts her public pronouncements with just the right combination of bombast and callousness to guarantee outrage from liberals and conservatives alike. There’s a reason why even Fox News frequently loses patience with her.

So, with that, let’s take a look at some of her greatest bizarro hits.

Opposing Women’s Suffrage

While the GOP is dogged in its pursuit of policies that are hostile and detrimental to the well-being of American women, there aren’t many Republicans out there who insist that women shouldn’t even have the right to vote. But there is at least one: Ann Coulter, who’s argued for repeal of the 19th Amendment on numerous occasions in numerous outlets. Here she is in the New York Observer, circa-2007:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

This implies that Coulter is forming an opinion based on pragmatics alone: She simply doesn’t want a Democrat in the White House. But then she went ahead and said this:

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it's the party of women and 'We'll pay for health care and tuition and day care -- and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?'

The only reason politicians who serve the interests of women would have reason to be ashamed is if women’s interests were intrinsically less valuable than men’s, and that indeed seems to be what Coulter is saying. She is right that somebody has reason to be ashamed here, but it isn’t Democratic politicians.

Calling John Edwards The F-Word

There’s always a healthy dose of crazy at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, but Coulter made sure the 2007 event was extra preposterous. At the time, Barack Obama was running for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton — and John Edwards. Coulter took to the stage at CPAC that year to discuss Edwards’ candidacy, and let loose a slur that’s rarely heard this side of the Westboro Baptist Church.

“I was going to have a few comments about the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out, you have to go to rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’” Coulter said, to raucous applause from the conservative audience.

When the New York Times asked her to explain herself, she quipped that she “would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards,” and thus solidified the Democratic Party’s hold on the LGBT vote for generations to come.

Calling Obama A “Monkey”

Once again, while plenty of Republicans dislike the 44th president, they usually don’t resort to such overt racism in denouncing him. But Coulter did just that in 2013 when, in an interview with Sean Hannity, she referred to President Obama as Vladimir Putin’s “monkey” during a discussion about Obama’s threat to launch airstrikes in Syria.

As for Putin in particular, no, he’s making a monkey out of Obama. I just tweeted out a very interesting article from the tablet suggesting that this whole thing was set up by Putin to make Obama look like a monkey.

There are, of course, plenty of terms that can be used to refer to somebody who does the bidding of someone else: Stooge, lackey, pawn, puppet, and so on. Only one of them has a history as a racial slur, and wouldn’t you know it — that’s the one Coulter chose.

Chalking Obama’s Success Up to Affirmative Action

Fox News' Sean Hannity is no friend of Obama — in addition to disagreeing with the president’s policies, he once attacked Obama for putting mustard, instead of ketchup, on his cheeseburger, since ketchup is obviously the more American of the two condiments. But even Hannity was compelled to defend the president when Coulter claimed that the only reason he got into college was affirmative action — and cited, as evidence, that “he’s a black American.”

“The current occupant of the White House is a Harvard and Columbia grad,” Hannity said.

“No, he’s affirmative action, that doesn’t count!,” Coulter shouted in response.

“Is there any evidence he got in on affirmative action?,” Hannity asked.

“Yeah, he’s a black American!” Coulter replied.

“That doesn’t mean he got in on affirmative action, that’s not right,” Hannity said.

And with that, Coulter managed the remarkable feat of getting Hannity, a died-in-the-wool Obama-hater if there ever was one, to actually defend Obama against an outlandish claim.

Claiming That Canada Sent Troops To Vietnam

During the Iraq war, Coulter was incensed that Canada didn’t send any troops to augment U.S. forces in the Middle East. Coulter attempted to contextualize this by pointing out that Canada did send troops to Vietnam in the 1960s. The problem, as her interviewer pointed out, is that it didn’t.

“Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends, and vice-versa,” she said. “I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam.”

“Actually, Canada did not send troops to Vietnam,” her interviewer, Bob McKeown, responded.

“I don’t think that’s right,” Coulter said, blankly.

“Canada did not send troops to Vietnam,” McKeown repeated.

“Indochina?”

“No,” McKeown said. “Second World War? Of course. Korea? Yes.”

“I think Vietnam,” Coulter insisted.

But she was, and is, wrong. In this interview, she demonstrated beautifully that her political beliefs, in addition to being repugnant, are also ill-informed.