In response to the question of Mark Twain on Ann Coulter, I offer this as relevant: In a letter to his wife (in Paris at the time) dated "Nov. 10/93," Sam Clemens (at the Players Club in New York) wrote, among other things: "The election last Tuesday was a whirlwind! It swept the Democratic party off its feet just in the same tremendous way that the Republican party was swept off its feet a year ago. It is curious to see both great parties in turn turning Mugwump. Yet both abuse the Mugwumps all through the off-months. "The Democratic party had everything their own way & could have remained steadily in power, but they had no sense, & haven't had any for forty years. They had not a single leader in Congress with any ability; their majority in the Senate was made up of cowards, & their President of the Senate was a wax figure. By consequence the country was left in a state of intolerable commercial congestion 3 months while those idiots sat pottering in the Senate. Evidently the whole country has taken the alarm, & is aghast at the idea of leaving itself longer at the mercy of these blockheads & poltroons. "In this State Dave Hill put up a convicted thief for one of the loftiest places in the Judiciary. The people rose with lightnings and thunder & tempest and snowed him under--buried him past resurrection under whole mountain-ranges of ballots. Now you understand why our system of government is the only rational one that was ever invented. When we are not satisfied we can change things." Terrible to realize how little things change in Washington DC. I don't think Clemens or Twain would've tolerated the likes of Coulter as human being or author based on his appreciation for our bipartisan system of government, but as showman and moneymaker, I think he would've considered her skills impressive. Alex Effgen