Even before either Coulter or O' Donnell took the stage, the people who were introducing them were jockeying for position such as mentioning that Coulter is "the New York Times bestselling author of eight different books" and that " O'Donnell is "donating his speaking fee to an organization that helps provide school desks for children in Guatemala."
The first hot button issue that was brought up was the current controversy surround Rush Limbaugh's criticism of Sandra Fluke in which he called her a slut and a prostitute. The moderator, Frank Sesno, couldn't even finish his sentence before being drowned out by the booing audience. The debate opening focused more on contraceptives than the controversy.
When asked for her opinion on the matter Coulter said "What I don't like about this and also what has annoyed me about a lot of the republican responses about the HHS mandate is that it is completely missing the point by making it a debate about contraception, which by the way why they really come to life when your talking about it. And about religious freedom, which isn't the issue here." She went on to say that it is not insurance.
“Insurance is to cover unexpected emergencies — fires, car crashes and dreaded diseases,” Coulter continued. “If we’re covering something that costs between $10 and at most $30 a month, well then what can’t be ruled on by the HHS secretary? This is them taking our freedom away — the government taking our freedom away. I think the next mandate if Obama is reelected is going to be that you will have to pay a higher insurance premium if you own a gun in your home.”
O' Donnell responded that "I wish that the government was not to require any insurance companies to do anything in the health care field area because I wish that the government would bypass the insurance companies completely."
When Coulter was further questioned about the Limbaugh controversy, she state that, “this red-herring, when liberals all get ginned up about some talk radio host who is very popular, I don’t know why Republicans, particularly elected Republicans are responding at all.” She further elaborated by questioning why other prominent individuals don't have to answer for their verbal gaffes.“Why doesn’t Obama have to respond to the things that his million-dollar donor Bill Maher has said, calling Sarah Palin the ‘c-word,’ for example. Why doesn’t my friend Lawrence have to respond his MSNBC colleague Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham a slut? Or Rachel Maddow accusing the good people of Kentucky of murders of the census worker?”
O' Donnell truly won an advantage over Coulter when he brought up a quote from 2003 in which Coulter says "It’s true. It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 – except Goldwater in 64 –would have won, if only the men had voted." She was asked this by the British newspaper, The Guardian.
The fact that this followed Coulter mentioning that people shouldn't be able to vote until they can afford health insurance- at age 26- didn't go over that well with the audience-mostly college students under 26. She effectively said that the majority of people listening should not be able to vote in the next presidential election. These statements elicited the loudest boos of the night and many members of the audience seem genuinely stunned at her comments.
Ann Coulter and Lawrence O' Donnell put on quite the show for GW students and shortly after wrapped up the debate. Mr. O' Donnell took some time to answer some question posed by WRGW's own New Director, Joey Rabinowitz. The interview can be found on our blog. And both Coulter and O' Donnell took some time to meet with students from the College Democrats and Republicans afterwords and answer questions and pose for pictures.
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