The Great Ann Coulter vs. Bill Maher Debate

Ann Coulter, best-selling author, TV personality, and conservative warrior princess met on the stage of Radio City Music Hall with Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time and far left snark machine, to debate the issues of the day.

The New York audience was a decidedly hostile one for Ann Coulter, who got booed several times, and a sympathetic one for Bill Maher, who got ovations from time to time. Nevertheless, both Coulter and Maher, who are actually friends in real life, got in some good shots.

Ann Coulter on naming names. "Doesn't the middle name 'Hussein' in a Democrat reinforce the impression of the Democrats being soft on Islamic terrorism?" Barack Obama. He who must not be middle named.

Bill Maher on Presidential cocaine abuse. "To start off, George Bush did a lot more blow than Obama ever did. Please don't ruin the only thing I like about him." Just as a side note, no one has ever proven that George W. Bush did cocaine. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has admitted to it.

Ann Coulter on Nancy Reagan and stem cell research. "Nancy Reagan was so madly in love with Ronald Reagan, if you told her that we could bring Ronald Reagan back to life, cure Alzheimer's by disemboweling everyone in this audience, she would say 'do it.'" Getting the Gipper back and killing a room full of lefties may be tempting, but it (at least killing the lefties) is still wrong.

Bill Maher on Rush Limbaugh. "We all say crazy s--t when we're high. I think it's interesting that he is now the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. It shows how clueless they are. They went looking for the future and they found radio." Bill Maher, though, would agree to wear a purity ring if he could have Rush's audience, one imagines.

Those samples should give one a good hint of what the Coulter-Maher debate was like. It was hardly Lincoln-Douglas or even Kennedy-Nixon, but it must have been a lot of fun, albeit exhausting for people with definitive opinions on the two principles.