Syracuse, NY - When Ann Coulter took the stage at Syracuse University Wednesday night, her friends and enemies visibly split into the people who jumped to their feet in applause and those who sat quietly in their seats.
The author and conservative commentator addressed a crowd of about 400 people in the HBC Buildings Gifford Auditorium.
Coulter delivered some of the familiar one-liners that keep her in the headlines with some backstory from her eight books, which many snatched up for an autograph at the end of the lecture.
Earlier this week, on the show Hannity, she said the wife of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsnarnaev should go to jail for wearing a hijab. Wednesday in Syracuse, she said the quote has not been taken out of context.
But it was a joke, she said.
Coulter said Hannity asked whether she thought anyone else in the family was involved or knew about the bombing. The real answer, she said, is that she didnt know. So she transitioned Hannitys question into the issue she wanted to discuss: immigration. Still, she made no apologies.
On immigration, she says the U.S. policy of allowing new citizens to bring family members to join them is at the expense of allowing other new citizens who have more education and job skills. This is how she puts it: Family reunification means a guy who is illiterate in the language of his own country, never mind ours, beats out a Danish surgeon.
People came to the lecture ready for some verbal sparring and many giggled at the door when the College Republicans announced that there would be no recording devices and no glass bottles allowed inside.
Bob Murfitt, an East Syracuse resident who worked on former Rep. Ann Marie Buerkles campaign, said Coulter delivered the kind of blunt, sometimes caustic talk he expected and likes to hear.
I wish more students who didnt like her had asked her questions, he said after the talk. You dont want to hear people just preaching to the choir. I dont disagree with anything she said.
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Ann Coulter says 'hijab' statement on Hannity was meant to be a joke