Posted on 06/08/2006 12:38:21 PM PDT by pissant
TRENTON, N.J. - Commentator Ann Coulter's incendiary words about outspoken 9/11 widows have led two state lawmakers to calls for a boycott of her book in the widows' home state of New Jersey.
Assemblywomen Joan M. Quigley, D-Hudson, and Linda Stender, D-Union, on Thursday called on New Jerseyans to stop buying the book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," and for retailers in the state to stop selling it.
"Coulter's vicious characterizations and remarks are motivated by greed and her desire to sell books. By making these claims, she proved herself worse than those she is attempting to vilify - she is a leach trying to turn a profit off perverting the suffering of others," the two assemblywomen said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Crown Forum, the publisher of Coulter's book, did not immediately return calls for comment Thursday.
In her new book, Coulter writes that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act "as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them."
She also wrote, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."
The comments drew criticism Wednesday from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who said the book should be called "Heartless," and New York's Republican Gov. George Pataki, who said he was stunned by the remarks.
Coulter appeared Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show and stuck by her stance, saying the women used their grief "to make a political point."
Her criticism was aimed at four New Jersey women she dubbed "The Witches of East Brunswick," after the town where two of them live.
The women - Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza - have spent the years since the 2001 terror attacks supporting an independent commission to examine government failures before the attack. During the 2004 presidential race, they endorsed Democrat John Kerry.
Attack their political views. Take issue with their statements in front of the 9/11 commission. Tell them they're exploiting their positions as 9/11 widows.
But asserting that they're glad their husbands are dead and that these guys would have divorced them anyway is just plain mean. In fact, dragging any speculation about their husbands into her book was wrong, and Bones knows it. She got personal like this because she wanted this reaction. She relishes controversy and could care less if it actually hurts anybody, so long as she can rake in the book sales.
Things like this that go around, tend to come back around.
She did the same praising Joe McCarthy. True red meat for the politically correct.
No. Respond all you want my friend. But with all due respect Peach, there isn't much you can add to what you've said. This whole ANN C thing has gotten the entire forum stirred up over differences of Opinion. I got pretty caught up in it yesterday and I'll not do it again.
Happy FReeping.
She made up nothing. She said: who knows, there husbands COULD have been ready to leave them. Silly hyperbole, yes. A statement of a purported fact: no.
They will now, like moths to a fire. LOL
Thanks for the intelligent look at the controversy.
Coulter threads seperate the men from the boyz here on FR. All the pseudo-conservatives come crawling out of their rocks bashing Coulter with the exact shrill strawman and out-of-context arguments the Left themselves use.
But urging the bookstores to not carry it is too damn funny.
See my previous post pinged to you, please? Ann didn't claim they were going to divorce them. She asked a rhetorical question..."how do we know they weren't?" It was rhetorical. It wasn't a claim that she knew they were going to. My previous post pinged to you says more on the subject. I think Ann was making a reasonable point, but when she put it the way she did...well...that's a different ball game, which I address.
Yes, hyperbole is acceptable as a rhetorical device, even volcanic hyperbole. And we conservatives need to use stronger language to get our message heard because otherwise, the leftist media would drown us out. Coulter is beating the media at their own game.
Intolerant. The word of lefties. You really think that anything Peach has said is "intolerant?" Is being critical and expressing an opinion "intolerant?"
If I were Ann, I would have responded, "Yeah, Bill, you're probably right," but she doesn't back down. If she did, she wouldn't be Ann.
Not true. I've seen her drink Chardonnay.
The kind of attack she has heard thousands of times over, without nary a whimper. The kind of attack that the sacred hens she blasted have never heard, and look at the fallout. Funny as hell.
"Ann hit the nail on the head when she said that the husbands were about to divorce their wives?"
Her statement is being misquoted in this discussion thread. Her statement is a speculative wisecrack and not a statement of fact. The sentence, in its entirety, appears on page 112 at lines 32 and 33: "And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?"
If you were married to her and got on her s**t list, life would be pure hell.
correct. And the reaction PROVES her point.
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