[Mb-civic] Fun read

[Allison Burnett]

An Evening with Ann Coulter v. Al Franken:

Franken¹s Opening Statement

 DEBATE OPENING STATEMENT ­ UNIVERSITY OF JUDAISM

Thank you. First of all, I know I join Ann in thanking the University of
Judaism for hosting this event. We¹ve had an opportunity to spend some time
with President Wexler and have dinner with many folks from the University
community.

And I¹d like to answer the question that I actually get asked the most when
I do an event for a Jewish organization. Yes, I had enough to eat.

You know, in these kinds of debate forums, someone has to go first. It¹s
always preferable to go second, because you can react to what¹s been said,
giving you something of a tactical advantage. More importantly, it pretty
much spares you the chore of writing out pre-prepared remarks.

Both Ann and I said we preferred going second, but I didn¹t insist on it,
because I understood somebody had to go first. And being a liberal, I just
wasn¹t tough-minded enough to insist on a coin toss.

So, I¹ll try to use my time to define the terms of the debate ­ if you will.
³Whence Judaism?²

No. I think we should talk about the Bush Administration and the Republican
Congress and what it has accomplished over the past five years. I¹m talking,
of course, about well over two trillion dollars added to the national debt,
the increase in poverty in our country and the added millions of Americans,
including children, without health insurance. I¹m talking about the sale of
our democracy to corporate interests that pollute our water and our air. I¹m
talking about the widening gap between the haves and the have nots in this
country. And I¹m talking about the war in Iraq.

I¹m talking about an increasingly corrupt, secretive, and incompetent
federal government that rewards cronies, a Republican majority in Congress
that¹s acted as a rubber stamp, that has performed virtually no oversight
and which excludes the minority party from the legislative process in a way
unprecedented in our recent history.

I also want to discuss with Ann the coarsening of dialogue in this country.
I want to discuss values with Ann. Values like love, of family, of your
fellow man, of country. Ann has said repeatedly that liberals hate America.
I disagree.

Last year I had the honor of speaking at West Point. It was an audience not
so very different from this one. Except that instead of you, the audience
was made up of about twelve hundred cadets. Many of whom will be going to
Iraq in the next year or so.

The occasion was the Sol Feinstone Lecture on the Meaning of Freedom endowed
by philanthropist Sol Feinstone. It¹s an annual event and Sol Feinstein¹s
granddaughter, who is about my age, attended.

After telling a number jokes and getting the cadets on my side. I told them
that we had been lied into the war in Iraq. I had just published a book
entitled The Truth (with jokes), and I told the cadets that you can¹t have
freedom without the truth. You can have freedom without jokes, as has been
proven by the Dutch and the Swiss.

I proceeded to prove that we had been lied into war, citing example after
example of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, who had been National Security Advisor in the
lead-up to the war, telling the public information that they knew not to be
true.

At the end of the speech I received a standing ovation from the cadets. Sol
Feinstone¹s granddaughter told me she had gone to every lecture for the last
thirty or so years, and that I received only the second standing ovation.
The other was for Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam.

By the way, Ann has written that Max Cleland was lucky to have lost his legs
and his arm in Vietnam. I disagree. More importantly, I know Max, and he
disagrees.

I believe I received the standing ovation because the cadets knew that I was
speaking from the heart, and that the information I had given them was all
true. And as I said, you can¹t have freedom without the truth.

You can¹t have good government without the truth. During the crafting and
passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill, the chief actuary of
Medicare was told to withhold from Congress the true cost of the bill. He¹d
be fired if he told the truth.

The bill costs so much, in large part, because the bill prohibits Medicare
from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies on the price of drugs. As
a result, seniors now pay on average 44% more than veterans getting the same
drugs through the VA which is allowed to use its size to negotiate with the
drug companies. To get the bill passed, the vote was held open for three
hours. Tom DeLay was later admonished by Republicans on the ethics committee
for attempting to bribe, and then extort, Republican Nick Smith of Michigan
to get him to change his vote. The chairman of the Commerce Committee Billy
Tauzin who ushered the legislation through, soon left Congress for a two
million dollar a year job as the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical
industry. Obviously, a complete coincidence.

During the 2000 campaign George Bush ran for president by saying repeatedly,
and I quote, ³by far the vast majority of my tax cut goes to those at the
bottom.² Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the president continues to ask for and sign tax cuts that go
primarily to those at the top. By the way, until George W. Bush, our country
had never cut taxes during a time of war.

As a result, our deficits grow and the cuts ­ in Medicaid, Pell Grants, food
stamps, low-income housing subsidies, community block grants ­ are targeted
at the poorest in our society.

George W. Bush famously said that Jesus was his favorite political
philosopher. Frankly, I don¹t get it.

I¹m Jewish. Thank you. I¹m not an expert on the New Testament. But I know
that if you cut out all the passages where Jesus talks about helping the
poor, helping the least among us, if you literally took a pair of scissors
and cut out all those passages, you¹d have the perfect box to smuggle Rush
Limbaugh¹s drugs in.

I don¹t understand when the Christian right says that equal rights in
marriage threatens marriage. I¹ve been married 30 years, many of them happy.
I don¹t think that if my wife and I were walking around in Boston, where we
met, if we saw two men holding hands with wedding bandsŠ I don¹t think I¹d
say ³Hey, that looks good. Y¹know, honey, you don¹t like watching football
on Sundays. Maybe I could marry a guy, watch football with him, and then if
I wanted to have sex, I could come over and have sex with you.²

I was just talking to Newt Gingrich the other day. And I said to him, ³Don¹t
you want for a gay couple what you had with your first wife? Don¹t you want
that bond that comes with the pledge of fidelity that you had with your
second wife? Don¹t you want what comes with that lifelong bond that you may
or may not have with your third wife ­ I have no idea what¹s going on
there.²

You know, Bill O¹Reilly always talks about his ³traditional values² ­ as
opposed to ³the far left¹s secular humanist values.² I didn¹t realize phone
sex was a traditional value. I didn¹t think the phone had been around long
enough. Maybe telegraph sex.

In her book Slander, Ann referred to Democrats and our ³Marquis de Sade
lifestyle.² I¹ve been married for thirty years. Ann, you¹re an attractive
woman. And I know you support the president¹s abstinence-only sex education.
I want to congratulate you for saving yourself for your one true love.

When my daughter was six years old, her teacher asked all her students to
write about how their parents had met. We told Thomasin that we met at a
mixer freshman year of college. I saw Franni across the room, gathering up
some friends to leave. I liked the way she was taking control and I thought
she was beautiful. So I asked her to dance, and then got her a ginger ale,
then escorted her to her dorm and asked for a date.

My daughter wrote, ³My dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink, and
then took her home.² Now all the facts were accurate, but what my daughter
wrote was extremely misleading. Now my daughter wasn¹t lying. She didn¹t
realize that what she wrote made her mom seem like a slut.

Ann, however, is not six years old. And she has developed her own techniques
for misleading, by leaving out important facts. Let me give you an example
of Ann lying by omission.

Also in her book Slander, Ann tells her readers that Al Gore had a leg up on
George W. Bush when applying to their respective colleges. Harvard and Yale.
Ann writes:

³Oddly, it was Bush who was routinely accused of having sailed through life
on his father¹s name. But the truth was the reverse. The media was
manipulating the fact that ­ many years later ­ Bush¹s father became
president. When Bush was admitted to Yale, his father was a little-known
congressman on the verge of losing his first Senate race. His father was a
Yale alumnus, but so were a lot of other boys¹ parents. It was Gore, not
Bush, who had a famous father likely to impress college admissions
committees.²

What does Ann omit? Well, that Bush¹s grandfather Prescott Bush was also a
Yale alum and had been Senator from Connecticut, the home state of Yale
University. That Prescott Bush had been a trustee of Yale. That Prescott
Bush had been the first chair of Yale¹s Development Board ­ the folks who
raise the money. That Prescott Bush sat on the Yale Corporation for twelve
years. That Prescott Bush, like George W. Bush¹s father, George H. W, Bush,
had been a member of Skull and Bones. That the first Bush to go to Yale was
Bush¹s great great grandfather James Bush, who graduated in 1844. That in
addition to his father, grandfather, and greatgreatgrandfather, Bush was the
legacy of no less than twenty-seven other relatives who preceded him at
Yale, including five great great uncles. Seven great uncles. Five uncles,
and a number of first cousins.

Now why did Ann leave out these somewhat relevant facts? Ann grew up in
Connecticut. Ann, did you really not know that Prescott Bush had been your
senator when you were born?

Ann, is it possible that when Prescott¹s son George H. W. Bush became
president, it totally escaped your notice that his father had represented
your state in the United States Senate? Did neither of your parents mention
it in passing at the dinner table? Did no one at home in Darien make any
comments about the new president¹s lineage?

Understand. This isn¹t sloppiness. This is deliberate. For Ann¹s purposes ­
to claim that the media that was manipulating facts here ­ Ann herself had
to manipulate facts ­ in such a shameless way. This is what she does.

And she does it over and over and over again.

Let me give you another example.

On page 265 of her book Treason, Ann writes of Tom Friedman, the New York
Times columnist. ³He blamed twenty years of relentless attacks by Muslim
extremists on- I quote ­ Œreligious fundamentalists of any stripe.¹²

This didn¹t sound like Tom Friedman to me, so I found the one Friedman
column that contained that phrase ­ ³religious fundamentalists of any
stripe.² It was from a December 26, 2001 column called ³Naked Air,² about an
airline where everyone would fly naked. ³Think about it,² Friedman writes,
tongue firmly planted in cheek, ³If everybody flew naked, not only would you
never have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or
exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever
be caught dead flying nude.²

Let me repeat. Ann wrote of Tom Friedman, Jewish by the way, that ³he blamed
twenty years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on ­ I quote ­
Œreligious fundamentalists of any stripe.¹² She bothered to put ³I quote² in
there for emphasis.

Friedman actually wrote ³no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would
ever be caught dead flying nude² in service of a conceit that illustrated
our dilemma of either becoming less open as a society or learning to live
with much higher risks than we¹ve ever been used to before.

Friedman was not blaming 9/11 on the Lubavichers, as Ann suggests.

Now this sort of deliberate misrepresentation contributes to a coarsening of
our nation¹s dialogue. Ann recently told an audience:

³We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens¹ creme brulee,²
Coulter said. ³That¹s just a joke, for you in the media.²

Here¹s my question. What¹s the joke? Maybe it¹s a prejudice from my days as
a comedy writer, but I always thought the joke had to have an operative
funny idea. I¹ll give you an example of a joke.

Like they do every Saturday night, two elderly Jewish couples are going out
to dinner. The guys are in front, the girls riding in back. Irv says to Sid,
³Where should we go tonight?²

Sid says, ³How about that place we went about a month ago. The Italian place
with the great lasagna.²

Irv says, ³I don¹t remember it.²

Sid says, ³The place with the great lasagna.²

Irv says, ³I don¹t remember. What¹s the name of the place?²

Sid thinks. But can¹t remember. ³A flower. Gimme a flower.²

³Tulip?² Irv says.

³No, no. A different flower.²

³Magnolia?²

³No, no. A basic flower.²

³Orchid?²

³No! Basic.²

³Rose?²

That¹s it! Sid turns to the back seat. ³Rose. What was the name of that
restaurantŠ?²

That¹s a joke. What exactly is the joke in ³We need somebody to put rat
poisoning in Justice Stevens¹ creme brulee?² Is it the crème brulee? Is that
it? Because Stevens is some kind of Francophile or elitist? Is it the rat
poison? See, I would have gone with Drano. I¹m really trying here, Ann.
Please, when you come up, explain the joke about murdering an associate
justice of the Supreme Court. One who by the way, was appointed to the
Supreme Court by Gerald Ford, and who, also, by the way, won a Bronze Star
serving in the Navy in World War II. What is the joke? ŒCause I don¹t get
it.

Now in Ann¹s defense, she doesn¹t always make horribly offensive remarks or
knowingly craft lies. Very often Ann is just wrong out of ignorance or pure
laziness. Take this from the MSNBC Show ­ Saturday Final ­ on August 30,
2003 ­ MSNBC. She is talking about how well the war in Iraq is going.

COULTER: I think the rebuilding is going extremely well. Douglas MacArthur
was in Japan five years after V.J. Day. There were enormous casualties in
Germany after World War II. The rebuilding is actually going quite well
compared to past efforts. And really, all we¹re getting from Democrats is
constant carping.

Ann, do you know how many combat fatalities the American military had in
Germany after V-E day? Zero. You know how many in Japan after V-J day? Zero.

Ann and I have debated once before. In May of 2004, and Ann still felt the
war was going amazingly well. Let me quote her from that debate:

³Š. This war is going amazingly wellŠ the casualty rate is incredibly small
for the rebuilding. It is going better than can be expected. You cannot read
about how well things are going against Al Sadr, where you have Iraqis
protesting against Al Sadr; all these stories about how Al Sadr had (this)
vast support among the IraquisŠ oh no no no. They recently held a protest
march saying, ŒAl Sadr, get out.¹²

As you know, Ann, Moktadr al Sadr, recently picked the Shiite choice for
prime minister for the new government, Mohamed al Jafaari. Sadr has
thirty-two seats in the Iraqi assembly compared to Ahmed Chalabi¹s zero. And
remember, it was Chalabi to whom we were going to turn over the Iraqi
government.

Things are not going amazingly well in Iraq. And they haven¹t been going
amazingly well since we allowed the looting of Baghdad. A week ago, former
prime minister Ayad Allawi said that Iraq was already in a civil war. And as
George Bush said in September of 2004, we should listen to Allawi because ­
and I quote ­ ³he understands what¹s going on there ­ after all, he lives
there.²

The first thing this Administration needs to do in Iraq is to start
acknowledging the truth and level with the American people.

I think the one lesson we can all agree on from Vietnam is that we cannot
blame the troops. By and large, the vast, vast majority of our troops have
performed heroically. And they deserve our gratitude and support. And that
means supporting them after they¹ve come home.

Two thirds of the wounded in Iraq now have brain injuries. That¹s because so
many of the casualties are from IED¹s, and the injuries are concussive and
not ballistic. Each one of those brain injuries is going to cost a million
dollars over the course of that veteran¹s life. And we need to fund programs
for those who come back with post traumatic stress disorder ­ a higher
percentage than in any previous war.

Now another value I believe in is love of country. For some reason it
rankles Ann that I¹ve done six USO tours and have had the nerve to talk
about it. I do so because I want people to be aware of the work that the USO
does. I want anyone here today who is a Hollywood celebrity to think about
giving up a couple weeks of your life to entertain our men and women in
uniform. I think it rankles Ann that I¹ve talked about going on the USO
tours because she can¹t conceive that anyone would actually do something for
anyone else. I didn¹t go to Iraq to prove that Democrats are patriotic, Ann.
I did my first USO tour in 1999, when Clinton was president. We went to
Kosovo, a war that was vehemently and vocally opposed by many Republicans.
Even so, we didn¹t call them traitors. I was invited by the USO to go to
Iraq because they know I do a good job and that it means a lot to the troops
when anyone comes over to show them we care.

My daughter is 25. She teaches inner city kids in the Bronx. And that makes
me proud. She hates when I say it, and that makes me even more proud.

My son is an engineering student. He wants to build fuel efficient cars.
He¹s a junior in college and got a job at Ford this summer working on a new
manufacturing process for power trans. I don¹t know what that means either.
But he got there because he works his butt off.

But my son doesn¹t feel that he got where he is because he is some kind of
rugged individual. That he did it all himself. He knows that he stands on
the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the
shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the
necks of Indians.

My wife and I tried to instill certain values in our kids. But we don¹t love
them because they¹re perfect. We love them because they¹re decent, loving
kids. Kids who care about others and care, by the way, about the truth.

One last thing. Speaking of the truth. A few months after my last debate
with Ann, the following appeared in a New York Observer story about Ann.