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 outrage—except from a few conservatives unwilling to criticize her.
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
I don't know about sinkspur's motivations. He's not a fan of several people I'm fond of, but they're so different in style and appearance that "cyberstalking" would be a stretch. He supported politically (and financially, IIRC) someone here in Texas who is actually worthwhile, which makes it difficult to pigeonhole him.
I'm just amazed at his razor-sharp wit in the previous post and can't reconcile it with his current position without explanation.
"but they're so different in style and appearance that "cyberstalking" would be a stretch."
Did you see the list of his posts that I posted earlier. They are just a tiny fraction of his attacks on Coulter in the last week.
And, as I say, he's been doing this for years.
This is way off. The sentiments expressed are obviously opinion and hyperbole and they got the attention of the left and are thereby selling many more books. The actual information in the book is thereby being disseminated more widely and the libs are starting to look publicly like the selectively sanctimonious prigs they are.
She certainly has patience with you.
I don't do a spell check on "argument" and you get all excited like you just had your first warm kiss. LOL.
Nine years with Coulter, eh? Good for you. Maybe since you know her so well you can tell her to quit going for the cheap laughs and grow up some. She's way past due.
And maybe you can take her out for a few bacon cheeseburgers and greasy french fries too .............. put some nice meat on that frame. She'll look better going to the bank.
Seriously, as I said before, I have three of her books. She's very funny and intelligent, and the point she had the guts to make about these "protected victims" needed to be made, and she made it. That's fantastic.
But, of course you miss my point. I have said a dozen times that she could have gotten the results she wanted, made the point she wanted to make without her lamentable last sentence suggesting that these women enjoyed their husbands' deaths. She is absorbing scorn that she needn't have had to absorb. Get it?
If you don't see that, then there is nothing I can say to you. You may just be starstruck. Go for it........ and take that Seattle "whine" to your dinner with her.......... and make her eat a real nice fattening dessert.
;-)
You either did not read the book or have read it with through borrowed liberals' eyes. The use of "enjoying" is prima facie opinion and is certainly a legitimate inference from the ladies' actions since 9-11.
Nine years with Coulter, eh? Good for you. Maybe since you know her so well you can tell her to quit going for the cheap laughs and grow up some. She's way past due.
Do you find it at all at odds with the statement you make directly afterwards?
And maybe you can take her out for a few bacon cheeseburgers and greasy french fries too ... put some nice meat on that frame. She'll look better going to the bank.
She could have avoided the damage and still made the point about the "protected victims".
She needs a better editor. (jmo)
Absolutely not.
Can you see how someone else might? If so, what would you say to that person to make him see the difference?
Grave-dancing. If Kristen Breitweiser had her husband's head, she'd wave it around like a flag. . . They make a living off the blood of their dead husbands. -- Sinkspur 10/20/2004
After you take your Haldol, I'd love to read your reconciliation of the above.
Then you wonder why the far-right is viewed as a bunch of gap-toothed, shoe-sized IQed neanderthals who can barely walk on two legs.
You forgot "cross-dressing."
"There is no evidence whatsoever that those women enjoyed their husbands' deaths..." per the article.
"Enjoyed" is past tense, and the Breitweiser coven probably didn't enjoy the deaths when they occurred. However, they seem to be having a rip-roaring good time being celebreties now -- and Ann didn't use the past tense; she said "enjoyING", and I think she's right.
Right.
He could say that Ann is in the public eye, he is not.
It was pretty funny.
;-)
He's not crazy about any of them. Simple. No big deal.
Do you remember the Paul Wellstone funeral? All these people show up, and the organizers turn it into a political pep rally, with the son screaming "WE WILL WIN! WE WILL WIN!!"
Now, you can make an argument (and I did make this argument--before I learned there were applause signs) that he felt passionately about the causes for which his father fought, such as sucking the brains out of babies as they're being delivered. However, the entire atmosphere was one of sleazy opportunism to capitalize on a prominent death.
One might say that "I've never seen so many people enjoying the death of a senator so much," but then, I'd have to look back to the last time a Republican senator died in office and see what the DNC reaction was.
Correction: They are just a tiny fraction of his comments on Coulter in the last week.
I really don't see the problem with the two statements side by side. I don't get it. I'm a little tired, so I'm really a little sorry. I've been up since 2:00 a.m.
"She could have avoided the damage and still made the point about the "protected victims"."
A lot of people have made that point. Many have said that she should have used "exploited," for instance.
Coulter has been fight for the conservative cause for her entire adult life. (With little or no remuneration until only very recently.)
In October 1998 Coulter got up on the stage of FR's first rally and expressed her support. Against the advice of her agent and publishers.
She has endured every kind of insult and calumny. And she has been physically threatened.
It is disgusting beyond belief to see so many so-called conservatives on a forum she helped to put on the map go apoplectic over her use of one word ("enjoy") instead of another (such as "exploit").
Especially when "enjoy" certainly can be argued to be true. (Who could argue that Cindy Sheehan is not enjoying her tragedy?)
And certainly the reaction to her words has proved the truth of her actual argument a hundred times over. That these people have been sanctified by their victimhood, and that they hide behind it--with the media's complicity.
Sinkspur has led a pack of ravening dogs in attacking everything they can dream up to attack about her. He (and others) have made up total lies out of whole cloth. And it was largely (and in the case of SS, wholly) bogus outrage.
It was just done for some kind of sordid kicks.
It's really no wonder we conservatives have so few good people on our side. I'm amazed we have any.
But it is a public forum--and very popular, too--frequented by Republicans, Democrats, and independents (on account of the latter two, mostly to sieze ammunition). If the point is valid (and funny!) why can't Ann make the same point? The objective morality of making the statement is no different.
Not at all.
Quickly, then... On one hand you object to Ann "going for the cheap laugh," by offering her subjective opinion (based on facts of some merit) but on the other hand, you subjectively ridicule her appearance (based on facts of some merit), which I presume was in order to get a laugh.
Thus, the standard to which you're holding Ann conveniently doesn't apply to you.
If I'm misreading the statements, or if you mistyped, please feel free to correct me.
If it makes any difference to you, I was reading an article written on her the other day... and apparently she and the reporter sat down to eat--Ann had a big juicy steak in front of her, the reporter said. This MAY have been because Ann thought the reporter to be a vegetarian (the reporter didn't say), but at any rate, Ann's weight may or may not have as much to do with her diet as her metabolism.
All that said, go to bed, my friend. No sense in staying up for this.
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