Unbelievably, it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke. The woman showed up right live and in person here in Pittsburgh for a lovely evening of Coultergeist-style invective, ad hominem attacks, and uh… “comedy.” The crowd was fairly well sized, and the “protestors” were almost nonexistent. Granted, it was raining.

Yes, I was on the left side of the auditorium. Stereotypical or what? Anyway…

If you’ve never seen Coulter live, let me tell you something: even if you’re a liberal of the most extreme sort, do it. Seeing the woman actually speaking is like night and day different from seeing her in interviews or reading her column/books. When it’s a live show, the fact that she really is a comedian becomes painfully obvious. She isn’t speaking to educate the audience, she’s speaking to entertain.

I don’t necessarily mean that in a derogatory way, mind you. However, it should be noted that there was not a single thing in the entire 45 minute rant that would be news to anyone aside from a few tiny nuggets. Furthermore, those nuggets may be news to some, but they weren’t revelations that would bring about greater understanding of our political landscape. For example, she mentioned the Jimmy Carter “swimming rabbit attack” three or four times throughout.

Even more bizarre, there really wasn’t any political debate. There was no discussion of conservative versus liberal viewpoints, she didn’t explain why the Iraq War is good for America’s security, why the President’s social security plan is good, what’s wrong with stem cell research or anything concerning liberal values. There was no discussion of how to bring about success in Iraq, why the PATRIOT Act was a good thing or what’s so important about going into Iran.

Rather, the entire screed was just about what one would expect. Bill Clinton was a rapist, liberals really really really super duper hate America, Hilary Clinton has “fat little legs”, we liberated the Iraqis, France is full of wimps, etc. There were some genuinely witty comments, I think it’s wrong to write up a review of sorts without being wholly honest. One good crack was concerning the nuclear submarine named after Jimmy Carter (”…it’s periscope only works in hindsight”).

However, as is typical of the Coultergeist, she also made a few comments that were, if not simply false, rather baffling. I’d like to point out my favorite three.

The Democrats are weak because they didn’t take more Congressional seats. This may be the most counterintuitive thing I heard throughout the entire evening. Ann’s point here was that the Democratic party is dying because of the squeaker changeover in the 2006 midterms. She claimed that Congress switches powers at every midterm and the change should have been 67 House seats and a dozen Senate seats.

And ol’ Wikipedia search quickly silences that. While 1994 was a massive changeover of 54 House seats and roughly a dozen Senate seats swinging to the Republicans, but aside from that there weren’t many similar size switches. 1986 yielded a large Senate swing for the Democrats, 1982 was a similar swing in the House. In 1974 there was indeed a giant change of 49 in the House and five in the Senate for the Democrats, but to suggest that 2006 was in some way a smaller gain than the historical norm is simply stupid.

Besides, the logic of saying that only a small majority of the nation supports party A is an indicator that said party is dying eludes me.

Bill Clinton only got 40% of the vote in 1992, largely thanks to Perot, and it’s funny that they called it a “mandate”. The fact that Clinton’s 43-37-19 victory over Bush and Perot only slightly mirrors the “Nadering” that Gore got in 2000 aside, I’m wondering how Ann could say this without the obvious question of how Bush could act like he had a mandate when he actually lost the popular vote for his first term. But, in typical Coulter fashion, even glaring inaccuracies were avoided.

I should also point out that in 1860 Abraham Lincoln won with 38% of the popular vote, or then we could get into the electoral college business, but I think I’m starting to get a little too complicated for Lil Annie.

Mohamed Atta in Prague. Amazingly, she brought up Atta’s supposed visit with Iraqi officials prior to 9/11. In yammering on about how liberals need amazing amounts of proof to link Al Qaeda with Saddam (which I believe is a fair accusation, especially since there’s none), Coulter again mentioned the Atta Prague affair.

Now, ignoring the obvious, her sideways attack at the CIA was nothing short of baffling. In noting that the CIA thinks he didn’t make the trip, she points out that the CIA also said it was a “slam dunk” on WMD in Iraq. In decrying the CIA in the hopes of casting a shadow of doubt on them to say that Atta really was in Prague, she also knocked down the WMD intelligence.

Which brings me to a brief tangent. Coulter derided liberals for focusing too much on WMD. She noted that the weapons inspectors weren’t looking for rape rooms and gas chambers, etc, and that the WMD issue was only a small part, that the liberation of the Iraqi people was also a factor. Well that’s great, but I guarantee you that there would not have been a majority support for the war if we’d all known that it was a humanitarian effort, especially when there are nations in far worse shape (Sudan anyone?).

Naturally, I’m only scratching the surface here. And I made sure to ignore the mountains upon mountains of standard “boy liberals sure do hate America” rhetoric that got slung about because, really, that’s just unnecessary. For me to point out that Ann says loony things about how awful liberals are will not surprise anyone, and the woman thrives on such things. Personally I’m only concerned with her hateful invective in the sense that she shouldn’t be considered a real commentator on news stations, in terms of really debating her such statements hardly bother me. They’re distractions, sleight of hand to keep the eyes away from her real intellectual offenses.

The “speech” was a whopping 45 minutes long. Frankly, I’m surprised she managed to drag it out that long. After the first 10 minutes we heard just about everything she had to say. After a while it was just nonstop repetition of her main points. I couldn’t tell you how many times she pointed out that liberals argue like children. This was in between calling Ted Kennedy a “dirigible” and saying that Bill Clinton was a rapist. Actual moments like the above were difficult to sift out between the ad nauseum “jokes”.

I also got to see someone get kicked out for heckling. A guy in cut off khakis, sandals, a “save the planet” hoodie with a fair amount of dirt on it, headphones around his neck and a severe need for a shave started yelling “PAT TILLMAN!!” at her and was promptly booted. When I talked to him later he failed to see why yelling at her would get him ejected. I never understood heckling myself. I’ve never heard a heckler and thought “now there’s a man I should take seriously.” But maybe that’s just me.

No, I didn’t cause a scene. For that very reason. Rather, I felt it best to simply soak in the experience. And when question time came, there was a line 30 strong and the first four were “how can we as conservatives fight liberal brainwashing?” so I just decided to head out.

All in all, it was just what I thought it would be. No more, no less, and frankly not nearly as angering as one might have expected. If for no other reason than it was simply such marshmallow fluff political “commentary” that it was impossible to take seriously.

There’s two aspects to this story. Seeing that almost twice as many American soldiers died in Iraq this past month than did Iraq soldiers is certainly bothersome in its own right. For the life of me I can think of a situation in which having more of your own die than the other military’s can be construed as a good thing.

The Associated Press count of U.S. military deaths for the month was 81, including a soldier who died from non-combat causes Friday. Figures compiled from officials in the Iraqi ministries of Defense, Health and Interior showed the Iraqi military toll was 44. The Iraqi figures showed that 165 Iraqi police were killed in March. Many of the police serve in paramilitary units.

Tiny numbers, really. The problem here is that the Iraqi military really doesn’t seem to be as involved as they should be. In light of the potential 2008 pullout date, this is troublesome. While they may be a few baby steps further along than they were, say, the day after the Saddam statue fell, I don’t believe they’re nearly far along enough that within a year or so they’ll be totally ready to be independent. The only hope I see is that the certainty of US force exit will force them to take the reigns themselves.

It’s also odd that we can still call this a “war” when 81 soldiers in a whopping month died. I’d like to know one other war that has yielded under 3,500 military deaths in four years. This isn’t a war. This is a police situation. To wit:

Additionally, the Iraqi ministry figures listed 1,872 Iraqi civilian deaths for the month, about 300 more than the AP tabulation, which is mainly gathered from daily police reports nationwide.

The civilian death toll for the month was down significantly from 2,172 in December, the highest month casualty figure since the AP began keeping records of civilian deaths in April 2005.

However, the number of civilians killed in March was in the same range as for the first two months of this year; 1,604 in January and 1,552 in February, according to the AP count.

1,900 deaths over 31 days is 61 per day. On average, as many citizens die daily in Iraq as do American soldiers in the full month. And who kills them? Is it another army? Another country invading? No, it’s rogues within the nation, a few undoubtedly with some weapons or money coming from Iran or elsewhere.

Consider Mexican illegals killing US citizens. Does that mean we’re having a war with Mexico? Are hate crimes indicative of a civil war that requires military intervention? Consider that we have seen claims that Iraq is safer than American cities, including recently that Iraq is as safe as Detroit.

During an interview Monday with WILS-AM, Rep. Tim Walberg said the returning troops he has talked with “indicate to me that 80 to 85 percent, in a conservative fashion, of the country is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit or Chicago or any of our other big cities. That’s an encouraging sign.”

Were this true (and I’m dubious on that), then why is this considered a war? If the civilian death count is lower than in American cities, and the deaths are at the hands of radical sects of the citizenry as opposed to an opposing military, then isn’t this an obvious law enforcement issue over military? Certainly neither DC nor Detroit, Los Angeles nor Atlanta requires the United States military to enforce the laws.

The only possibility comes in the form of corruption withing the government, and we’ve certainly heard rumblings of “death squads” and other somewhat “state-sponsored” death. But again, is that for our military? Only if we plan on storming the palace again, so to speak. And the Administration seems undeniably more interested in diplomacy than overhaul.

So we have civilian deaths at the hands of other citizens, a small handful of military deaths, and we’re working with the government rather than fighting against them. So my question is… where did the war go?

Nah, no April Fool’s day prank from me. However, I do have a huge project in the works, hence the lack of updates. I’m tryin’, though!