We are the evidence!
In 1991, Oprah Winfrey had a show on the topic, and she invited a spokesman from Dow Corning, against which the anti-breast-implant mob had already begun to file the thousands of lawsuits that were to drive the company into bankruptcy just a few years later. What Oprah did not tell the spokesman was that the entire audience had been packed with women who had gotten breast implants, gotten breast cancer, and believed with the fervor of the mad that the one caused the other.
This was the first time I encountered what, fifteen years later, Ann Coulter would call "the Left's doctrine of infallibility," "using their grief to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding." (The link is to a transcript of Coulter's appearance on the Today Show with Matt Lauer; tuck it away in your grey matter, we'll come back to it at the end of this post.)
The premise of these Oprah women was that, since they suffered from a terrible disease, therefore any pronouncement they made about its cause was not open to argument.
It made no difference what the Dow spokesman said; they could not care less about the scientific evidence he cited. He noted, as his basic point, that if silicone breast implants were in any way implicated in breast cancer, then the rate of such cancer among women who had silicone breast implants would necessarily have to be higher than among women who did not have them.
Any rational human being should be able to understand that much. You don't need a PhD in oncological research. If smoking is implicated in lung cancer, then smokers should have a higher rate of lung cancer than non-smokers... and by golly, they do; much higher. That is why no serious medical researcher in the last forty years has disputed the point: the statistical argument is unanswerable.
Curiously, however, women with silicone breast implants have an identical rate of breast cancer as women who have saline implants or women with no implants at all. There is no difference; a hundred studies have shown this, and not a single one has shown the opposite. This is almost irrefutable evidence that there is no connection.
When the Dow guy brought this out, the women responded by booing. One leapt to her feet and shouted, "nobody ever studied me! Why don't you study me?" And the mass cheered in response, just as they might have cheered a coherent argument.
Then, in a surreal display that brought to mind Franz Kafka (or George Orwell), they actually rose in near unison and began chanting "we are the evidence, we are the evidence!" Whenever the Dow spokesman tried to speak, he was shouted down. He was accused of not caring about them. Women stood and burst into tears, accused him of "harassment" because he dared to defend Dow Corning's product.
Thus the infallibility of grief in action: these women suffered a tragic loss -- and that immunizes their every pronouncement from response.
A decorated war veteran who lost three limbs in the Vietnam War
Flash forward a few years, to the 2002 senatorial re-election campaign of Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA) against Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).
During the election, Chambliss raised the issue that Cleland was too liberal for the state of Georgia; to make that point, Chambliss aired some hard-hitting ads saying that Cleland's policies -- in particular, his opposition to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security -- benefitted terrorists and dictators, like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. As the names were mentioned, the Chambliss ad showed brief images of their faces:
The ad says that Cleland does not have the "courage to lead" at a time when "America faces terrorists and extremist dictators." The evidence? Cleland voted against the president's version of the still-pending Homeland Security agency 11 times.
Now, the point is arguable; many Republicans didn't like the idea of the new department as well, calling it "just another layer of bureaucracy" and "shuffling boxes around the org chart." But Cleland did not try to argue it... instead, he and his surrogates in the antique media swiftly trotted out the point that he was a decorated Vietnam veteran who has lost three limbs:
Cleland, a decorated war veteran who lost three limbs in the Vietnam War, blasted the ad, accusing his GOP rival, Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss, of trying to wrest political advantage from the war on terrorism and the impending conflict with Iraq. "Accusing me of being soft on Homeland Security and Osama bin Laden is the most vicious exploitation of a national tragedy and attempt at character assassination I have ever witnessed," the senator said in a statement.
The infallibility of grief, take 2.
Of course, Cleland did not actually lose his legs and part of one arm "in the Vietnam War;" he lost them during the war, in a stupid accident: he was hopping out of a helicopter that was taking him and other soldiers on a "beer run," and a grenade slipped either from his own vest or someone else's. He bent over to pick it up, and it exploded. His grievous injuries were not attained in combat; and indeed, none of his decorations were for that incident (he, personally, never claimed they were; but he, personally, also never corrected the record when others claimed Cleland lost his limbs in combat).
The meme was launched, not just by the Washington Post but virtually every other newspaper, magazine, and television network: Saxby Chambliss, how dare you question the patriotism of a guy who lost three limbs?
The club of grief
The phenomenon Coulter describes is far more despicable than anything she has said in attacking it. "The infallibility of grief" is used to silence opposition by exploiting basic human decency.
Among con artists, there are two kinds: those who exploit human greed by tricking their marks into thinking they can con someone else (like the "dead millionaire Nigerian dicatator" spam) -- and those who exploit human pity by pretending to some tragedy that causes the decent to want to help them out (the classic "my rented baby is hungry, can you give me $5 for some baby food?" scam).
The latter are much more repulsive; if a greedy guy thinks he's scamming someone else and gets fleeced himself, who cares? He got what was coming to him. But to rip someone off by attacking his empathy and goodness not only punishes the victim for his goodness, it also makes him cynical -- and makes it that much harder for people who really are in trouble to get help. Once bitten, twice shy.
But those who practice the infallibility of grief scam are even worse
- They affect the much larger arena of public policy via irrational appeals to emotion;
- They twist tragedy for their own ends;
- They pervert the deaths of their own loved ones (recall the funeral of Sen. Paul Wellstone);
- And they create backlashes against those who really have suffered great tragedy, but have chosen not to use grief as a weapon... a backlash that is itself exploited by the "griefarazzi" as a weapon against the Right.
Coulter argues -- and I completely agree -- that by using their grief as a club to batter their opponents into silence, they have willfully and irrevocably forfeited the right ever again to use it as a shield.
"Mother" Sheehan (as she likes to be called, aping the religious without actually stooping to practice religion) has been relentless in retailing the death of her son Casey for political purposes wholly at odds with what he, himself believed. By using the doctrine of the infallibility of grief as an offensive weapon, she has forefeited any right to fall back on her grief when her politics are attacked.
So has Michael Berg, who has taken to the airwaves to argue that President Bush, not Musab Zarqawi, is responsible for the beheading of his son, Nick Berg. Look what Bush made Zarqawi do!
His only call for making such judgments is his certificate of authenticity as a man who suffered a terrible tragedy. Berg uses victimhood as a badge of authority to batter down any response under a sledge hammer of faux guilt: how dare you defend Bush against my attacks? I lost my son!
And now at last this brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Ann Coulter vs. the Jersey Girls.
Enjoying their husbands' deaths
Here is what Coulter wrote in her newest book, Godless, that has provoked such a fury of denunciation... not just from the left, but from the right as well:
These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was part of the closure process....
These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparazzies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.
Very hard words; but I stick up for Coulter even here. Read above: the Jersey Girls have used their grief as an offensive weapon against Republicans and in support of the candidacy of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA, 100%)... and that means that by their own actions, they forfeit the right to use their personal tragedy as a shield against attack.
But who are the "Jersey Girls?"
The Jersey Girls or Jersey Widows (Kristin Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken, and Mindy Kleinberg) are four women from New Jersey whose husbands were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks....
The Jersey Widows testified for hearing led by congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on July 22, 2005 [2]. In Lorie Auken's statement she said this of the 9/11 Commission Report:
And finally, without compromising our national security, it would have reported all of its findings, with its redactions blacked out and submitted to the American people. In essence, the Commission could have produced a final product where the resulting conclusions and recommendations could be trusted. Instead, at the end of the day, what we got were some statements that truly insulted the intelligence of the American people, violated our loved ones’ memories, and might end up hurting us, one day soon.
One such statement is that 9/11 was a ‘failure of imagination’. A failure of whose imagination? What exactly does that mean? When you have a CIA director with his hair on fire, a system blinking red, 52 FAA warnings, an August 6th, 2001, PDB entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States’, leads on several 9/11 hijackers including Alhazmi, Almihdhar and Marwan Al-Shehi, warnings from many foreign governments, a Phoenix memo warning of Islamic extremists taking flying lessons, the arrest of would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussauoui, facts imparted to one agent, Agent Frasca at the RFU at the FBI, 9/11 was truly a failure alright.
What else did they do? Was that it? Not by a long shot. From the Today Show exchange, here is Coulter on the Jersey Girls' politicking... facts which none of Coulter's critics have troubled to dispute. (This is a hallmark of the infallibility of grief, by the way: Cleland didn't try to argue that his votes against the DHS were right... he simply denied Chambliss the right to criticize him at all because of the tragedy Cleland suffered in Vietnam.)
They were cutting commercials for Kerry. They were using their grief to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding.
In a Hannity and Colmes segment yesterday (no transcript, I just watched it), she elaborated, noting the television shows and magazines that had featured them, the Democratic fundraisers they attended. I myself recall them sitting on some panel on terrorism, as if they were experts by virtue of grief. The Jersey Girls were not "grieving widows," for they were not grieving... not unless, as Coulter put it, "denouncing Bush was part of the closure process."
They are not grieving widows; they are crusading widows. The difference is colossal.
Matt Lauer's snide questions are almost tailor-made to prove Coulter's point, for not once does he ever bother responding to anything she says; instead, he spent the entire interview subtlely undermining her moral credibility and her decency for daring to challenge the crusading widows in the first place:
His first words, before even reading what she wrote:
- Do you believe everything in the book, or do you put some things in there just to cater to your base?
After reading the excerpt where she concludes "I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much”:
- Because they dare to speak out? [At least, thank God, he didn't say "dare to speak truth to power." -- the Mgt.]
Here are the rest of his "responses" to Coulter:
- So grieve but grieve quietly?
- By the way, they also criticized the Clinton administration. [Lauer gives no examples.]
- So if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?
- Well apparently you are allowed to respond to them. [Said while he attacked her for responding to them.]
- What I’m saying is I don’t think they have ever told you, you can’t respond.
- No. I think it’s a dramatic statement. “These broads are millionaires stalked by stalked by grief-parazzies”? “I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s deaths so much”?
- The book is called “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Ann Coulter, always fun to have you here.
There you go: content-free invective. Lauer never responds, refutes, debunks; he just denounces. This is practically a classroom demonstration of the infallibility of grief at work.
In the same article in Editor & Publisher, the Jersey Girls themselves (plus Monica Gabrielle) respond (they get the last word, of course; Coulter is not allowed to respond to their response). Amazingly, their response also reinforces Coulter's original point:
We did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001. The attack, which tore our families apart and destroyed our former lives, caused us to ask some serious questions regarding the systems that our country has in place to protect its citizens. Through our constant research, we came to learn how the protocols were supposed to have worked. Thus, we asked for an independent commission to investigate the loopholes which obviously existed and allowed us to be so utterly vulnerable to terrorists. Our only motivation ever was to make our Nation safer. Could we learn from this tragedy so that it would not be repeated?
They then append a list of eight Democratic-Party talking points, the exact attacks that Minority Leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 95%) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 100%) make against President Bush and the Republican Congress.
Ask yourself this question: what reason is offered for us to accept the analysis of the Jersey Girls about what's wrong with our response to 9/11? Why listen to them, instead of (for a wild example) Big Lizards?
The only reason put forward is that 9/11 "tore our families apart and destroyed our former lives."
That's it. If they conducted "constant research," they certainly didn't demonstrate any in their response, nor on any of the media lollapalloozas they basked in for months: the television appearances, the spread in Vanity Fair, the Kerry campaign rallies and fundraisers they attended, or the commissions where they spoke.
Their sole authority to declaim upon Bush's failures is that they lost their husbands on September 11th; their sole response to critics of their political activities is "we did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001."
But they certainly chose the path forward from that point. They buttered their bread; now they refuse to sleep in it.
Battered Conservative Syndrome
Yet rather than stand up to the bullying use of victimhood as a weapon, many pundits and bloggers on the right have instead joined the liberal dogpile on Ann Coulter. The response of conservatives matches that of Matt Lauer: who cares whether Coulter's critique is right or wrong? Those poor women have suffered! How dare she add to their grief?
They join the liberals in attacking Coutler for malfeasance of rhetoric; in this, conservatives are showing classic symptoms of Battered Spouse Syndrome. Huddled in a defensive crouch, they labor to prove that they are too decent, they are so sympathetic -- they attack Coulter to prove their own chivalric honor. They become "enablers" of liberal griefarazzi.
Many conservatives have let themselves be ensnared by the "infallibility of grief" gambit. Like suckers who give money to the woman with the baby she rents by the hour, conservatives who attack Ann Coulter, without regard to the point she makes, prove the utter truth of that point: the reflexive, Lorelei power of the whimper of whipped dogs. And like Odysseus, if they don't stop their ears or lash themselves to the mast, they will wreck upon the rocks.
The Left wallows in that whimper, in the infallibility of grief; they use it to bypass argument, substitute for evidence, and take the place of moral courage. To argue with the grief-mongers makes ordinary, decent people feel like they just yelled at Grandma and made her cry. And the Left shamelessly exploits that basic human guilt.
I grew up in a Jewish family, and I had that trick played on me too many times. My family and culture burned out that autoresponse circuit in me; sorry, but like Jo Dee Messina, my give-a-damn's busted:
You can say you've got issues, you can say you're a victim
It's all your parents fault, after all you didn't pick 'em
Maybe somebody else has got time to listen:
My give-a-damn's busted
If you're a human being, you feel sorry for people who have suffered great tragedy. But if you're a reasoning human being, you don't allow empathy to leap up your throat and strangle your brain: you control it; you take a step back and ask whether We are the evidence ever means anything more than "Shut up," she explained.
