This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” Oct. 4, 2004, that has been edited for clarity.
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SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Also, the cheap shot of the day coming up, but first, joining us is the author of a brand new book out today, “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).”
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: And you must.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Ann Coulter. You two have always had some very passionate debates.
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR: Yes.
HANNITY: Now, I just had a big fight with the Kerry guy.
COULTER: So I heard.
HANNITY: Now you have ten rules on how to argue with liberals. And we checked them all. I passed all the tests.
COULTER: You did pass.
HANNITY: Well, we should go through it. Don’t surrender out of the gate. You don’t need to be defensive. And you said I did the very with, I must outrage the enemy.
COULTER: You outraged him. And our objective during this segment is to get Alan to storm off.
HANNITY: Are you going to try and get Alan to storm off?
COLMES: She’s been trying for eight years to get me to storm off, but it hasn’t worked yet.
HANNITY: All right. This is a provocative title. You like it — and I don’t know what it is. We’ve been friends a long time. You know you get under Alan’s skin. You get under a lot of liberals’ skin.
COULTER: Right. It’s rule number three. You must outrage the enemy. If you don’t leave liberals in a sputtering impotent rage, you’re not doing it right.
You have to read the book. No, I mean, the way Republicans and conservatives have fought, basically, up until, you know, 10 minutes ago, was to concede, you know, all the liberals’ points. Maybe say, oh, we have a little caveat here, and, oh, please like us, and we’re not anti-Semitic. I mean, every week Bill Buckley was running another National Review on conservatives are not anti-Semitic.
Why are we being defensive? We should be on the offense.
HANNITY: Was the president on defense on Iraq the other night? And this was the point I was trying to make with Kerry’s guy is that they went through this whole debate, a 20-year history of frankly borderline appeasement was not brought up in this, you know, entire debate.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: This guys has skated — with 29 days out of an election — most people have no idea how weak he’s been on defense.
COULTER: And I think that’s right. But beyond 20 years, you claim you figured out what his position was on Iraq after the debate.
HANNITY: No, I don’t.
COULTER: I would like a $1 million reward, you know, for anyone who can tell me what his position is after.
HANNITY: Are you going to offer one?
COULTER: No, they have that rocket up in space now. I mean, you can have private awards for these things, just to find out what Kerry’s position is now.
How about his position right now? If these people were authentic patriots, you would, you know, accept their criticisms of this or that, but the point that Kerry, I think, is left with is, there is never the right war at the right time in the right place.
They never want to fight a war to defend America. They certainly wouldn’t have fought World War II. I mean, screaming about all the casualties in battle after battle, and Hitler was being contained. I mean, what is the right war at the right time? There will never be one.
HANNITY: But we wouldn’t have most of the major weapons systems we now have — that comprise our modern military because he’s voted to cancel most of them. We wouldn’t have, as weak as our intelligence was, we would have spent $7 billion less had the Kerry amendment passed.
I guarantee you, of the 60-some-odd million people that ended up watching that debate the other night, 90 percent of them probably don’t know this record. And which, 29 days out of the election, is an amazing, you know, accomplishment for John Kerry that he’s been able to skate under the radar to that large extent.
COULTER: Right. And that great statesman, Saddam Hussein, would still be in power, while we waited for the global test, i.e., the French, to say it’s OK.
COLMES: That’s not what he said. And I showed you what he said in context.
By the way, here’s your big chance, Ann, to talk to a liberal. Congratulations. This is your big opportunity.
By the way, FDR was president during World War II. I believe he was a liberal, so it’s not true that liberals are not going to fight World War II.
COULTER: Right. He was last one who was willing to fight a war.
COLMES: Yes, after we were attacked, and after Germany declared war on us four days later, that was not accurate to say.
COULTER: I’m saying today’s liberals would not. I think that is a fact.
COLMES: You just said liberals have never fought wars.
COULTER: No, I said liberals would not fight World War II today.
COLMES: They did. FDR did.
COULTER: Wait, are you following my point? Now he’s just being annoying.
COLMES: You always think that. Look, let me ask you a question. How does one talk to a conservative? Maybe you can help me out with the converse. How should I talk to you?
COULTER: That’s a good question. We prefer facts and logic.
COLMES: OK.
COULTER: Whereas the latest debate shows, I mean, what everyone keeps talking about how, oh, Kerry won, Kerry won. What are they talking about? Oh, how he held himself, his bearing.
You always talk about how Republicans are the ones who are engaged in, you know, spin and style. To the contrary, that is — what we want to know is the information.
COLMES: OK, you like facts. Here’s a fact. One fact is that the president sees intelligence that a senator doesn’t see and — President Bush kept saying that he and Kerry saw the same intelligence. That’s not true. I think that was one fact.
COULTER: Well, such that Kerry was probably seeing the intelligence the French had.
COLMES: I see. There you go. So that’s one fact.
COULTER: They all thought there were weapons of mass destruction.
COLMES: Another fact would be whether the centrifugal centrifuges could be used to develop nuclear capability for Iraq. And it turns out that we had false information. Condoleezza Rice, I think, said an untruth a number of times, saying the ones Iraq has can only be used for that.
So you want to talk about truth. I think this administration has a big problem with the truth.
COULTER: These complaints liberals have about what was said when, I mean, if we had complete knowledge, you wouldn’t need any intelligence gathering whatsoever. The president isn’t god. We do have intelligence gathering. It will be imperfect.
COLMES: Right.
COULTER: But my point is, Democrats and Kerry can’t be trusted because they will fight no war at the right time.
COLMES: Well, that’s not true.
COULTER: I mean, I would be willing to entertain arguments that we should have attacked Iran rather than Iraq, except we know they wouldn’t have attacked Iran, either.
COLMES: Would you have supported that, attacking Iran? Would you support that?
COULTER: Maybe.
COLMES: Maybe? You’re not sure?
COULTER: Yes. No, but I support fighting in a war…
COLMES: Do you want to start a war with Iran, yes or no?
COULTER: I don’t think we need to because of Iraq. Because now they know, you know, we do have a man with testosterone running the country who will fight a war to defend America.
COLMES: Yes, that’s great. That’s great. You’ve been asked, by the way, if you want to reiterate that statement when you said right after September 11, you said, and you know where I’m going with this, I’m often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, convert them to Christianity. You say the same thing Nixon said in 1972, “Now more than ever.”
COULTER: Now more than ever.
COLMES: So you want to invade their countries, you want to carpet bomb the Mideast?
COULTER: No.
COLMES: But they should all become Christians, right?
COULTER: By Friday of 9/11, we had accomplished point one and point two. Invade their countries, killed their leaders.
COLMES: I see. We’ll take this up when we get back.
HANNITY: We’re going to take a break, more with Ann Coulter. We’ll talk more about her brand new book just out tonight, “How to Talk to a Liberal.”
COULTER: At midnight tonight.
HANNITY: Only if you must.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLMES: There it is, a page tonight from HANNITY AND COLMES notebook.
According to the Durham, North Carolina, Herald Sun, two University of North Carolina students got into a little fight after the presidential debate the other night which culminated in the students slapping each other. What were they fighting about? Apparently, the two disagreed about who Jesus would vote for in this election.
But the debate and the unsung scuffle were pointless because, as I have said before, Jesus was clearly a liberal. And you can read more about that in my book, out in paperback next week, “Red, White and Liberal: How Left is Right and Right is Wrong.”
HANNITY: You mean, they were fighting over the chapter in your book about Jesus being liberal?
COLMES: No, that’s not — no, but they were having a fight about whether Jesus would vote Democrat or Republican. We all know he’d be voting for Kerry.
We continue now with the author of “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must),” and, Ann Coulter, unfortunately for her, must tonight.
Ann Coulter. All right. “I’m often asked if I think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, convert them to Christianity.” Who do you want to kill besides — you want to kill Saddam Hussein?
So what other leaders do you want to kill?
COULTER: Leaders of Muslim fanatics. That would include Muslim clerics. It would include al-Sadr.
COLMES: They all should be killed?
COULTER: We already have wrapped up a lot of the top leaders.
COLMES: Would you like the convert them all to Christianity?
COULTER: Osama bin Laden is D-E-D dead. No one can convince me otherwise.
COLMES: Would you like to convert these people all to Christianity?
COULTER: The ones that we killed, yes.
COLMES: So no one should be Muslim. They should all be Christian?
COULTER: That would be a good start, yes.
COLMES: So, in other words, you wouldn’t respect their religious beliefs? You would just want them all to be Christian.
COULTER: The point is, I mean, I suppose if I were a Muslim, I might say, “Oh, they are not practicing true Islam.” What we must convert them to is true Islam, but the point is, a conversion must take place.
They think they are practicing religion when they fly planes into our skyscrapers and kill thousands of people, and to act like this isn’t a problem of religion — whether it is true Islam or not — is just sticking your head in the sand.
COLMES: But you’re talking about a group of extremists who misuse Islam and aren’t practicing true Islam. But would you like to convert all of these countries to Christianity. Should they all become Christian nations?
COULTER: Yes, that would be terrific.
COLMES: Really?
COULTER: Yes.
COLMES: So we should just — they should all be Christians. You don’t respect the fact that there are this many Muslims in the world, and the world would be a lot better if they were all Christians instead of Muslims?
COULTER: To be honest, I didn’t really care, until they started flying planes into our buildings and blowing up small children. Then I took note.
COLMES: I see. Now they should all be Christians? OK. No further questions.
COULTER: And this is, by the way, well, OK — this is, by the way, what America has done after World War II, after the Korean War. MacArthur put out a call for Christian missionaries to come, and missionaries poured into Japan. They poured into Korea. It didn’t work as well, the conversion in Japan, but it certainly did in Korea. And I know that we haven’t had any trouble from them for a while.
COLMES: Korea?
COLMES: From South Korea.
HANNITY: All right. Let me move on for a second.
I want to go back to the debate that took place on Thursday for a minute here. Ten days really prior to that debate, John Kerry finally got his script from James Carville and Begala and the new Clinton guys.
And now, he is — which contradicts everything he said before. He went. He studied his lines. He went out there and he forcefully delivered them. Why is it that there are people in this country that think that that was a good performance? Why is it that people are not aware of all of the contradictory positions he had prior to this? Is that what the problem is?
COULTER: Well, how about the contradictory positions within the debate itself? I mean, this is what I was just saying about Democrats seeming to be so fond of style and substance. I mean, they seem to think Kerry won the debate because he had a better tan, he had a nice manicure, he stood tall. He didn’t trip.
But, I mean, you say he memorized his lines. I can’t remember a single line.
HANNITY: “This is a colossal misjudgment.”
COULTER: Was that a line from the debate, because it didn’t really stick with me.
HANNITY: Well, no he did say it was a colossal — but he also said, “I supported the fact we disarmed Saddam.” How could you support the fact that you disarmed him and then say it was the wrong thing to do? How can you say it’s “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,” and say you support the troops in this?
COULTER: Right. At the beginning of the debate, he said Saddam was not a threat, wrong war, et cetera. And at the end of the debate, of course, he was a threat a threat. He says he wants a multilateral coalition, you know, to fight the war in Iraq and not have 90 percent of America fighting it.
HANNITY: But why do people perceive this as a successful performance?
COULTER: But when it comes to Afghanistan, he’s indignant that it was not 100 percent Americans. He wants a coalition to — and a summit to deal with Iraq, but he does not want a summit to deal with North Korea. I mean, just within the debate, I can’t figure out what his position is.
And I think everyone knows what his position is, that these are appeasers. This is the appeasement party. They do not want to fight any wars to defend America.
HANNITY: What would you advise the vice president to do tomorrow night?
COULTER: Oh, you’ve got to review chapter one.
HANNITY: All right. Good plug.
But, you know what, that’s fine. But what you do advise the vice president and the president — you see, I think the one thing that they have got to do now, Kerry has gotten a pass, and I think it’s time for the pass to end.
If the media is not going to do its job, then they have got to do the job via ads and debates.
COULTER: Right. I think that’s rule six. Never show graciousness toward a Democrat. And I think that is what Bush did a little too much. I mean, it’s always a problem with an incumbent president.
He’s president, and he has to waste his time arguing with this knuckle head? And you sort of got that sense from him, but he does have to waste his time arguing with that knuckle head.
HANNITY: He does, successfully.
COULTER: And he can’t keep being gracious.
HANNITY: And bring up his record.
COULTER: And praising — and what’s he doing is — praising his Vietnam record, you know, as if Kerry wasn’t talking about that enough. I think he needs to be a little tougher.
COLMES: You had to talk to a liberal tonight, and thanks for doing it. You had to talk to a liberal.
HANNITY: You guys got along better than you have in a long time.
COLMES: Ann Coulter — much to his chagrin.
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