Watch Ann Coulter Manhandle Matt Lauer

The first example came in the the context of President Bush's current push for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage. The liberal mantra on his initiative, as exemplified by Ann Curry's performance on yesterday's Today, is that this is a cynical political ploy and a waste of time when there are myriad 'real' issues out there to be addressed.

Right out of the box, Lauer invited Ann to buy into that logic:

"David Gregory said if you ask people what they care about they say Iraq and gas prices. Gay marriages are way down on the list, but that's what the president is talking about and what the Senate is taking up. Why?"

Coulter would have none of it:

"I don't know what people are talking about or how David Gregory knows that. But I do know that gay marriage amendments have been put on the ballots in about 20 states now and passed by far larger numbers than Bush won the election by."

Matt then hit Ann with a classic exemplar of perceived liberal truth - the musings of a WaPo columnist. Lauer:

"Here's how E.J. Dionne puts it in the Washington Post: 'The Republican party thinks its base of social conservatives is a nest of dummies who have no memories and respond like bulls whenever red flags are waved in their faces.' Do you agree with that?

Coulter: "That the base are dummies or that Bush thinks that?"

Lauer: "That he can wave a red flag and they will run to the polls to respond to him?"

Coulter: "They don't need to respond to him. He's not running again."

Lauer: "They want the voters to turnout in the mid-term elections. They don't want to lose control of the congress."

Coulter: "Maybe they want to do what the voters want. Whatever you can say about whether or not Bush has a mandate, the mandate against gay marriage is pretty strong. It passed by like 85 percent in Mississippi. Even in Oregon, and that was the state that the groups supporting gay marriage fixated on and outspent their opponents by like 40:1, it passed even there. There is a mandate against gay marriage."

Lauer: "Do you think George Bush in his heart really cares strongly about that issue?"

Coulter: "I don't know what anybody cares in his heart."

Lauer: "Would you take a guess?"

Coulter: "I know what Americans think because they keep voting, over and over and over again overwhelmingly they reject gay marriage. So why is that a bad thing for politicians to respond to what is overwhelmingly a mandate?"

Ann's rejection of Lauer's liberal logic was again on devastating display a bit later in the interview. Lauer suggested that Pres. Bush's low approval ratings are attributable to Iraq. That in turn engendered the following exchange.

Coulter: "I don't think so. That's the one thing he is doing right and that the Democrats are incapable of doing. That is fighting the war on terror."

Lauer: "But I am talking about the war with Iraq, not the war on terror."

Coulter: "I consider them the same thing. We didn't invade Guatemala."

Cue the rim shot!

Ann Coulter will be on my show Friday morning talking about her new book.

Hat Tip to Mark Finkelstein's blog