Posted on 06/13/2006 3:02:44 PM PDT by Mike Bates
In the controversy over Ann Coulter's comments about the group of 9/11 widows, there is one critical question, from the point of view of ensuring standards of accuracy in the media. How does Coulter know it to be true that, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." There is no evidence whatsoever that those women enjoyed their husbands' deaths, and Coulter offers none. The only "evidence" for this preposterous and hurtful claim is that the women became activists and sought the media spotlight and took a political position at odds with that of Coulter. But what does that prove?
I think Coulter probably would have been correct to say that the women appeared to enjoy the media attention. You don't go on these shows unless you enjoy them to some degree. But enjoying a death? And the death of a loved one when fatherless children were left behind? Coulter's comments are not only false but cruel. She has also made other disparaging personal comments about the women.
In journalism, facts and truth are supposed to matter. Opinions are allowed, and Coulter, a columnist for Human Events and many other newspapers, is entitled to her own opinions.
SNIP
If the matter only involved personal opinions about people or things, Coulter's comments wouldn't really be newsworthy or significant. But she is claiming to have inside knowledge of the personal psychology of this group of women who lost their husbands on 9/11. That is why the comments have generated so much outrage—except from a few conservatives unwilling to criticize her.
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
At the outset I note that she is not reporting "news" but is rather engaged in polemics. A little hyperbole never hurt anyone and is a legitimate rhetorical device.
Facts ONLY matter according to who the "journalist" is.
Her point--about the way these women are point out there to spout anti-Bush rhetoric but are unable to be criticized because of their personal loss--is a valid one. But she has no idea about these women "enjoying" their husband's deaths.
You... you... you stirrer!
She also has no idea if the dead husbands were going to divorce these women.
Coulter is projecting: she's been dumped so many times for being bitchy, she presumes that's the way every woman is treated.
Or to differentiate in another way, I don't think she meant that they enjoyed the actual deaths themselves, but rather the fruits of their deaths - the added attention, the celebratory mourning, and lots of other unseemly behaviors.
Exactly.
I have often been a critic of Coulter, and this controversy illustrates my point: Are we discussing the substantive issues she raises in her book, or has this just turned into an argument about Coulter? The latter, obviously, and that is the problem. As for the outrage of liberals, I'd like to see their outrage at some of the over-the-top claims that liberals make about Bush, conservatives, etc. Someday, when pigs fly and hell freezes over . . .
Cliffy's undies are in a knot
Unfortunately, nothing really beyond comments that these women themselves have made about others, while appearing to revel in their circumstance.
Thank you, Dan Rather, for putting out further made up "facts."
Coulter: "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."
Kincaid: "[S]he is claiming to have inside knowledge of the personal psychology of this group of women who lost their husbands on 9/11."
++++++
Accuracy In Media?
LOL
I'm surprised Cliff is taking this view... usually, he's on-target with his analysis.
Busted!
It's called Coulterism: if Ann can make up facts about 9/11 widows, facts can be made up about her.
They certainly enjoyed the spotlight and the celebrity. I think that's beyond dispute.
1. Coulter is not a journalist; she is an opinion writer and an entertainer.
2. She was not offering an opinion about what was supposedly going through their minds, but rather was making, in very acerbic language, a valid point about the common practice of the left to hide behind sympathetic human shields and using these tragic figures as spokesperson for their agenda. While criticizing the way Coulter said it, this girly man fails to even address her point and the context of what Coulter said. To that end, Coulter was entirely right even if one disagrees with some of the phrasing she used to make her point.
All Coulter was talking about was the propensity of the left to use tragedies as a lever to innoculate politically active people against open debate.
These women were taking advantage of their husband's deaths to gain an advantage in a political debate.
Coulter is correct.
They literally "enjoyed the benefits" of the way their husbands died in ways no other women whos husbands died that day "enjoyed" their husbands death. Ann was spot on.
Coulter was voicing an opinion, not reporting this as being fact-based news. She was merely stating for women is such grieving, they seem to be making the most of a tragedy using it to run off on some heady partisan crusade. I think it's a reasonable observation even if you think her opinion is wrong.
Now maybe AIM could stop wasting its time on opinion which pretends to be nothing but opinion and get to work on all the opinion masquerading as journalism that said Rove was about to be indicted and that the offing of Zarqawi is meaningless.
Go to Sinkspur's home page (click on his name to get there).
Check out how many (literally) hundreds if not thousands of posts he has made about Coulter.
You can scroll back for months, even years. You'll see the same thing.
He is obsessed with attacking her. And has been for years.
I'm surprised frankly that such online stalking is allowed here.
The four Jersey women became millionaires (or significantly increased their wealth) as a result of their husband's deaths. They have chosen to become activists as though they were representing all widows and widowers as a result of 9/11. They are fair game in the political arena. Going around stinking up the country with their unsubstantiated assertions, claims and charges against the current administration just serves to demonstrate their ignorance of the political process and their disdain for other victims of 9/11 who disagree with their very public assessments, IMHO.
Those kinds off comments from Anne are what I objected to also. She's just slinging mud on no factual basis. Something I would expect from a lib but not an intelligent woman like Anne.
She shamed herself with those comments, but I guess it helped her peddle her book.
The Jersey girls absolutetly enjoyed the deaths of their husbands. The problem is that many of you do not understand that there are TWO definitions of the word 'enjoy'.
The popular definition is: To seek pleasure from....
The other definition, and the one that Coulter used is: To gain benefit from....
Anyone who can deny that the Jersey Girls benefited from their husbands deaths, through notoriety, attention, financial and influential, is just ignoring the facts.
Coulter was dead on the money about those four.
And what is it when she implies their husbands were going to divorce them? She's clever and too smart to need to resort to this kind of attack so you have to think; why did she do it? It's all about selling books; she loves the controversy.
I see. In your world, Ann's wrong (as you perceive her conduct) makes your (now acknowledged) slander of her right.
Under that standard, Ann was perfectly entitled to make up her whole book!
Mr, Kincaide should note, being the literary gury he obviously thinks he is, that Coulter was saying "I have never seen," she did not say "there have never been," and her "evidence" would be her own perception, would it not? This guy is really torturing the quote and his reading of it.
Surprised to see that Accuracy in Media put this out .. or that AIM is still around, come to think of it.
Right?
Hello?
gury = guru
I am familiar with Sinkspur's posting habits.
Sure there is. These women exult in it, just like Jesse Jackson waving his bloody shirt around in 1968. The only thing Ann has said wrong is when she backpedalled and qualified her comments.
That's the way I took it too.
en·joy Pronunciation Key (n-joi)
v. en·joyed, en·joy·ing, en·joys
v. tr.
1. To receive pleasure or satisfaction from.
2. To have the use or benefit of: enjoys good health.
I believe they are enjoying the vanity fair and other MSM coverage of them and their new found celebrity status.
<Ann Coulter is just too right-on even for many conservatives who are soooo afraid of being called "mean spirited". Well, I'm sorry, but here's one conservative whose give-a-damn is just flat busted, to steal a phrase.
Bingo!
>>>How does Coulter know it to be true that, "I've never
>>>seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."
Because she saw what she saw, and she is telling us what she saw?
And you know Coulter has been dumped "so often" how? What are you, a gossip reporter now? Why the obsession with this woman with you?? Did she turn you down for something??
LOL!! Stalking? She's a public figure. If she's going to open her yap, she's not above criticism herself.
You want FR to be a big cheering section for Coulter. There look to be lots of cheerleaders here, and a few dissenters.
You seem to want to silence the dissenters. Is that true?
And, George W. Bush has been the target of criticism of several posters on this website since the day he was inaugurated in 2001, yet they continue to post against him. Would you like to shut them up too?
Just how far do you want to go in silencing anybody you disagree with, Mojo?
I guess you missed the part where I mentioned that this has gone on for YEARS.
(TOW the line. LOL)
Is that so? Given that the Leftist Jersey Girls couldn't wait to stand on their corpses and use their deaths as a soapbox for political action, I would think Coulter is exactly right about how the little darlings "feel."
oh wow, we had the same reaction! LOL
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