Posted on 06/08/2006 10:59:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
I was ready to give up on Ann Coulter. Even as a fan and a strong conservative, I found her questioning of the 9/11 widows in Godless hysterical and heartless. I thought it sad that such a brilliant mind had become unhinged. Saying that the Jersey Girls, the four women who lost husbands at 9/11, were "enjoying" their husbands' deaths? Ann -- time for rehab.
But then I saw the response from Kristen Breitweiser and the other 9/11 widows. Despite myself, against myself, a small fissure found its way into my disappointment. Don't bring it up, I told myself. To question grieving people is an attack not on their politics but their personhood. It is beneath you. Let it go.
But the more I saw the Jersey Girls' press release, the more that fissure widened. They defended their criticism of the lack of preparation for 9/11 -- a lack they claim continues to this day -- and called for civil right oversight, stronger border security, and better defense at ports and airports. Before the list came this: "Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day."
I read that, and a thought came to mind. I tried to push it away, ignore it. But I simply could not get that line out of my mind: "there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive."
But I couldn't get around it.
What person describes the death of a loved one in such detail?
Think about it. Think about people you've loved who have died, and how they died. When I was in high school in the early 1980s a friend was killed in a devastating driving accident There was an open casket at the funeral, and afterwards me and a group of buddies went to the roof of one of their houses and sat there talking all night. We talked about football, girls, sadness, the weather, depression, our parents -- everything except what we saw in that coffin. To this day it's referred to as "the night Dale (not his real name) died." Ten years ago, my father died of cancer. I can hardly bring myself to say the word, much less describe what he looked like and went through in the last months. When I meet someone who had a loved one suffer a similar fate, the conversation always trails off when we mention our common story. One of us will mutter, "it's a terrible thing," then change the conversation.
Curse me, I know I'm going to hell for this: Why did the Jersey Girls describe the deaths of their husbands with such startling precision? "Men that we loved burned alive." My mind wanders back to the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. In one powerful episode that was recounted in Harper's magazine, the father of a girl who was killed when the plane went down asked about justice. He turned on the reporter and said, "How can there be any justice in this cruel world?" It is to make one weep. This poor soul gave no details, but delivered a powerful existential wail of pain: how can the cosmic scales of justice be righted when I've lost my girl? Think of that space in death (and the ineffable splendor of love) that unites us as humans created by God. It's the space that creates a zone of quiet respect, mystery, and even fear that stops us short of details when the death of a loved one comes up. We evade out of deference to the tragedy of death, its inevitability, and the idea that it is a mystery allowed by God that we may at some point get to understand. It is where we are equal as persons, and politics disappears.
To inspect the details of death, reveal them, announce them, is often the province of the propagandist or social activist. It's the gun control advocate who announces at the town meeting, "My son's brains were splattered all over me." The seatbelt champion showing slides of bodies in pieces. The reporter who will pick over every drop of blood spilled at Haditha.
It was the Paul Wellstone funeral.
When Ann Coulter doubted the 9/11 widows' grief, one way to prove her wrong would have been to respond not with a bullet-point memo about the failures of George Bush, but to simply say: Ann, you have entered a sacred space and violated it. We will not describe how our husbands died -- that is a silent place of pain between us and God. We have political differences with Miss Coulter, but we do share a common humanity. It is that humanity which she has soiled. We will pray for her, and for the United States of America.
Instead, they created a visual that no American doubts, or wants to contemplate. Not because we are cowards, but because we know the reality all too well. Our rage -- some of us anyway -- has hardened into steel resolve to see this through and support those fighting for us. One gets the sense that Breitweiser & Co. decided to rachet up the imagery to score political points. Saying our husbands died because we weren't prepared just doesn't pack the same punch as: they burned alive, and Bush could have prevented it -- and may cause more of it. One is philosophy, spirituality, and love of country. The other is politics.
Mark Gauvreau Judge is the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep: How I Became a Catholic Despite 20 Years of Catholic Schooling (Crossroad, 2005) and Damn Senators: My Grandfather and the Story of Washington's Only World Series Championship (Encounter, 2003).
The Coulter comments though extreme are constructive. They have exposed a method of the left. You can see the phony shock on their faces at Coulters comments. For it is not shock at Coulters "coldheart". They are angry that they have been exposed and the fear many had to ever criticize the politics of those widows is now gone.
If a modern liberals angry, your doing something right.
Coulter took one for the team. Not many would do that.
I can just see them saying inside, "Don't attack me. My husband died!" I heard their statment on the tv today and I thought it confirmed exactly the point Ann was making. It was a perfect example and reinforcement. LOL!
The point of victimhood politics is to remove a topic from debate. The left knows they can't win by saying "do what I want because it is the best thing to do," so they say "do what I want or you will cause these people more pain." It's the same old demonizing of one's opponents with a thin sugar-coating.
If you want to see the fangs of the left, confront them with the truth, and they will show their fangs.
The left can get away with obvious lies by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 911 or University Professors like Ward Churchill poisoning the young minds in Colorado.... But let Ann Coulter peel back a few layers of the skin of the onion they call cover and we call the MSM, and the screams begin.
IMHO Ann Coulter nailed the left like they haven't been nailed in quite a long time
Ann Coulter is our lady warrior saint ! Rip um up Ann ...no mercy !
Ann is so up front that what she says and does shocks so many who end up seeing the light. Usually after a few gasps and shocked looks.
After a while she is looked upon as the balliest person in the room!
Bump
Should read: "WTC". Sorry, I'm still rattled.
Condolences.
Psalm 116:15 -- Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
http://www.biblegateway.com/
Ann just has the guts to say what alot of us are thinking.
But that is the whole point! Once she says, "My husband BURNED to death", you are supposed to shut up. That is why they say it. It is a reminder of how she has suffered and it isn't polite to challenge suffering people with hard questions.
I haven't read Ann's book yet nor did I read the Jersey Girls' full statement. But it sounds like Ann wrote about them personally instead of refuting their ridiculous attacks on W. But instead of responding back to her, they renewed their attacks on W, and then threw in the burning comment to, again, shut everyone up. Typical.
The Coultergeist haunts Dhimmicrat nightmares.
ballsiest, no? Least that's what my urologist says.
I am sorry for your loss. I hope there was, at least, someone caught and prosecuted.
The thing to remember is that it isn't really possible to criticize leftists strongly enough, or to be mean enough to them.
Whatever Coulter said, they deserve worse.
Breitweiser's held herself out as a public person - way beyond a grieving widow -- she's put herself in the public place. A place where an assumption is made that if she can dish it out she can also take it.
Look, these women have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Bush - and when the smallest thing is said back to them they hide behind their "widow" status. If they can dish it out, they can take it.
Great piece, thanks for the link. BTW it is by Dorothy Rabinowitz, not Claudia Rosett.
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