[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

"we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" .... I forgot about that one. Theres no defending that. (Im sure its been defended by some though,....

Oh yes it can be defended! When a quote is deliberately removed from its context because the quoter knows that the context throws an entirely different light on it than if the quote stood alone, that person is a liar. Lies by omission are still lies.

Suppose one of the two of you states, "Hitler said all the Jews must die!" and I decide to remove the first two words of your quote and attribute the rest to you, far and wide, hounding you into every thread and every forum you visit, to throw this "accurate quote" of yours in your face again and again and again ...... would you then finally understand the power of the misuse of context?

I'll assume you two are merely repeating lies of omission, and not knowingly lying, because I'm a firm believer in: "Never assume malice, when an explanation of 'ignorance' will suffice".

Here is the surrounding context of Ann's most-quoted quote, that the two of you so conveniently neglected to include:

• She said it a couple of days after 9/11, when emotions were running extremely high in the country, particularly among firsthand witnesses in NYC, where Ann lives.
• She lost her best friend that day - Barbara Olson - on AA Flight 77. Anyone here ever had your best friend murdered? I can't begin to comprehend how I'd feel if that happened. Heightening the grief of all who knew Barbara were a number of touching circumstances involving her murder - such as the fact that she had delayed her flight by a day in order to be with her husband for at least part of his birthday, or that she was able to talk to him by cellphone in her last minutes of life. Again, I'm at a loss to understand the feelings of someone on that day who lost their closest friend under those ciccumstances.
• The time she wrote those words, during the height of her grief, would have been just about immediately after the time that the govt announced the identities, nationalities, and religion (or implied religion) of at least some of the 19 murderers.
• More context to the "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" quote: Those of us who are history buffs (as I've heard Ann is), when contemplating the overall history of Islam, will likely first think of the fact that their greatest era of success was when they were ..... guess what? .... invading Christian (and other) countries, killing their leaders, and converting them to Islam. And no, this doesn't justify doing the same back to them a millenium-plus later, unless you're a firm believer in revenge of the Eye-For-An-Eye kind. But at the very moment when you've found out that a new Islamofascist crusade is responsible for murdering 3000 of your hometown citizens plus your own closest friend, and you're thinking about the history of the previous great Islamic crusade and the massive human tragedy it wrought, doesn't that add a great deal of context to her quote?

In summary, I believe that Ann Coulter, and anyone else who lost a loved one that day, would have been "within bounds" to say something like that, in their first reactions to their own personal loss within the worst mass murder in US history.

This doesn't mean I'd give her or anyone else a free pass to say such a thing eight years after 9/11. Not at all. The extraordinary context that exists immediately after any tragedy of that magnitude fades over time.

Similarly: If, say, a lifelong friend of mine has never uttered foul language in my hearing, but breaks his perfect record at the exact moment someone drops an anvil on his foot, I would vociferously defend to any of his detractors the appropriateness of his remarks, within the context, but without in any way implying that, "Yes, in general, it's quite all right to use this language in public".

Nuff said.

[Impy]

“Oh yes it can be defended! “

Tee hee.

The words didn’t spout out of her mouth in the heat of the moment she wrote them in her column she had time to think about it and as far as I know never retracted it. Yes we know it was right after 9/11.

http://www.nationalreview.com/coulter/coulter.shtml

I dispute your allegation anything was taken out of context. That’s an exact quote not

//////”Suppose one of the two of you states, “Hitler said all the Jews must die!” and I decide to remove the first two words of your quote and attribute the rest to you, far and wide, hounding you into every thread and every forum you visit,”///////

anything like the scenario you describe.

All corrupt or evil rulers in the Mid East or anywhere deserve to die (or least rot in prison) in my option. And radical Islam is a threat to the world. I wish no one was a Muslim.

But to suggest US policy should be to go on the final crusade, come on that’s nuts. American soldiers of which there are not nearly enough to even attempt this sort of thing (which would fail so spectacularly, hell if the President tried to do it he would be removed from office for mental heath reasons), dying while trying to force people in a whole bunch of countries to change their religion, sounds super. She misjudged the situation if she thought she wouldn’t take a credibility hit for that one.

It was hyperbloic and silly assuming she was just venting and doesn’t actually think it’s a good idea.