Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Transcript fun

The other day on the CBC, The Fifth Estate ran a good hour-long documentary called "Sticks and Stones". It lookd at what passes for political debate in the US these days, and the general lowering of the tone, accusations of treasons, and ad hominem attacks which have begun floating around — typically emanating from the right wing, and specifically from Fox News. The most amusing part of the documentary came during an interview with noted wingnut Ann Coulter, in which ... well, after some searching, I came across a transcript here.

No, I'd never heard that Canada had fought in the Vietnam war either. Oh, wait; that's because we didn't.

The funniest and scariest thing about that moment wasn't Coutler getting a basic historical fact wrong. It was her complete refusal to back down, or to admit she was wrong — even when the person she was dealing with clearly knew more about the subject than she did.

All you can do is shake your head and have pity. Not for Coulter. Not for her audiences. But for everybody else down south who has to put up with these people.

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