Coulter treated the audience members as if they were anchor babies, punishing them for even being there. She began her riff with an awkward pitch for her just-released Trump book, earning loud boos from the attendees. The Queen of Mean then rattled off a string of toothless zingers, many of them met with dead silence.
“As a right-wing hatemonger, it’s fantastic to be at a big Hollywood shindig with all these glittering celebrities that isn’t a fundraiser for Obama,” she began, as the camera cut away to a shot of Maria Shriver looking like she’d rather be watching the Zapruder film. Coulter jabbed Ralph Macchio with a standard, “oh, you’re still alive?” joke, before complimenting him on how good he looks. “Whatever you’ve been drinking, you have to send a few cases to Hillary,” she added, indicating that she is clearly used to working rooms in which just saying the words “Hillary Clinton” is enough to provoke belly-laughs.
Even before Coulter reached the podium, it appeared she had no idea what she had gotten herself into. As speaker after speaker heaped abuse on her, she stared ahead, with a dead-eyed, emotionless gaze. (Sample jokes: Peyton Manning — Peyton Manning! — congratulated Coulter on winning the Kentucky Derby. Comedian Nikki Glazer told Coulter the only man she’d ever make happy would be “the Mexican digging your grave.”)
It would be one thing if this were just “woman bombs at celebrity roast” — certainly, more refined performers than Coulter have given cringe-inducing speeches at such events. But given the habit of liberals to hoist the most odious conservatives up as official spokespeople for the movement, this one hurt a little more than usual.
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