Afraid of the power of ideas

I'm always fascinated by the Left's tendency to silence people with whom they don't agree, something that lines them up remarkably well with Islamic fundamentalists (the fatwa against Rushdi and the murder of Van Gogh spring to mind here). It seems to me that there's no better way to trumpet the fact that your ideas can't stand up to intellectual scrutiny, and that the other guy's ideas are way better, than to struggle so mightily to silence the other guy. That's why I always assume that Ann Coulter, who is often the victim of this weird pathology, must delight in those lectures where strategically placed liberals in the audience do everything they can to silence her. She's not silenced, because she has other forums, but the liberals' fears and foolishness are blatantly exposed for all to see. I mention this because it happened to Coulter yet again, this time at the University of Connecticut. Coulter was unfazed, cutting her speech short and going immediately to questions and answers:

"I love to engage in repartee with people that are a lot stupider than I am," she said. `We're having a question and answer right now with the little crybabies."

Gotta love that gal. The best part of the whole Coulter article, though, was hidden about halfway down:

The UConn College Republicans invited Coulter, a Connecticut native, in an effort to bring a well-known, provocative speaker to get students talking and thinking about the conservative perspective. Some students were upset that the student government spent $16,000 to bring what they consider a "hateful" speaker to campus. To provide another viewpoint to Coulter's, the Progressive Students' Alliance had brought in Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who made headlines in August by camping out near President Bush's Texas ranch to protest her son's death in Iraq. Sheehan's speech Monday also was paid for with student government funds.

Sheehan, the lovely woman who lauds terrorists, hates Bush, seeks Israel's destruction, and cheers American losses in the war. I guess it depends who is defining "hateful."