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 outrageexcept from a few conservatives unwilling to criticize her.
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
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.
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