I know she just says these things to get attention like any other spoiled brat, but like every other spoiled brat, Ann Coulter occasionally needs a good spanking. I’m sure she enjoys a good spanking more than your average spoiled brat, but that’s a subject for another day.

Anyhoo, Ann was set to give a speech at the University of Ottawa. And the protests were so harsh that they cancelled the whole gig. Ann was predictably annoyed:

“The University of Ottawa is really easy to get into, isn’t it?” she said in an interview after the cancelled event. “I never get any trouble at the Ivy League schools. It’s always the bush league schools.”

Now, I’m sure I’d be mad, too, if I were her. (Or would I? She still got paid, I’m certain, and did so without having to do any actual work at all. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of a good day for an arch-conservative?) But “bush league”? Really? The U of Ottawa?

Here in the US a lot of folks “think” all kinds of bad things about our neighbors to the north, and most of these bad things they “think” tell us a great deal more about the person doing the “thinking” than they do about Canada. In this case, it’s easy enough for Ann to disparage uOttawa because Americans don’t know a lot about Canadian schools. We may occasionally hear somebody mention the University of Toronto or McGill or Carleton or Dalhousie, but since they don’t have good football programs (not real football, anyway) it’s hard to take them seriously.

So I thought I’d take a minute to point out that the U of O is actually a pretty darned good college, their distaste for Ms. Coulter notwithstanding. Ann ought to recognize and respect this, too, since she herself is the product of a couple of very fine universities – Cornell and Michigan.

So, a few factoids to consider:

• U of Zero (as its affectionately known) was founded in 1848. That’s older than Cornell, by the way. It’s been offering doctorates since 1888.
• U of O is ninth in research funding in Canada.
• Ottawa is ranked among the top 200 universities in the world on multiple criteria by multiple ratings systems.

Auspicious uO alums include:

• Samantha Bee of The Daily Show
• a metric buttload of entrepreneurs and business leaders
• Peter Jennings
• at least five current and former Canadian Supreme Court justices (including one chief justice)
• Daniel Lamarre, president and chief operating officer of Cirque du Soleil
• Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada
• Alex Trebek
• several senior-level current and former government officials, including multiple prime ministers and premiers
• more renowned artists, performers, photographers, writers and playwrights than you can shake a stick at
• many current and former professional and Olympic athletes
• Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Supreme Court Justice
• Walter Douglas Boyd, world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon
• Michael A. Chambers, President of the Canadian Olympic Committee
• Jeanette Jenkins, Hollywood fitness trainer, official spokeswoman for BET’s Television Foundation “A Healthy BET Campaign”
• Wilbert Joseph Keon, cardiovascular surgeon, first Canadian to implant an artificial heart in a human
• Carol Shields, Pulitzer Prize winning writer
• Dafydd Williams, Canadian astronaut

Not only that, but uO also features several faculty members from Ann’s own alma mater, including:

• Marc Brunelle, Linguistics
• Jocelyn Harvey, Research Advisory Council
• Alexandra Gheciu, Public and International Affairs
• Serge Desgrenier, Physics
• Blair Crew, Review Council
• Yazid Dissou, Economics
• Darrin Richeson, Chemistry
• Susan Spronk, International Development and Global Studies

There are more, but you get this idea. Now, this has to be a little embarrassing for Coulter, but it gets worse. Somehow, a number of those dirty socialist pinkos have slithered across the border and infiltrated Cornell. For instance:

• Andrea Besley, Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project
• Wayne Schwark, Life Sciences
• Glenn Solomon, Mediation and Arbitration
• Suzanne Gervais, Nutrition
• Michael Todd, Operations Research and Industrial Engineering
• George Karolyi, Finance and Business
• Hong Ding, Pharmacology
• Aldona Spiegel, Surgery

The two schools’ researchers collaborate with each other, as well. And if you snoop around a bit, you can find a lot of other really smart people who at one point or another passed through the hallowed halls of both Cornell and uOttawa.

Ye shall know them by the company they keep, I suppose. I won’t pretend to claim that a public school from a nation a tenth the size of the US boasts as illustrious a record as Cornell, an Ivy Leaguer that’s without question one of the crown jewels of the American university system. But the objective record doesn’t support any “bush league” nonsense, either; on the contrary – my guess is that it’s not hard to find a good deal of respect for Ottawa around the Cornell campus.

Once again, then, Ann Coulter has embarrassed her alma mater. Of course, if I’d gone there I’d be embarrassed every day she was alive, and if those who do hold Cornell degrees were to band together and demand that her Bachelors be rescinded, I’d certainly understand.

In the end, I can think of few things that speak more highly of the intellect and character of the University of Ottawa than the fact that its people decided Ann Coulter’s style of hatemongering would not be tolerated on its campus. Would that America had more bush league universities like that.