[XJarhead]

She is indeed "preaching to the choir" and to anyone else who understands the language of political debate "ain't beanbag".

If her goal is to sell books by preaching to the choir, she's succeeding. But that makes her just a salesperson, not anyone whose opinions matter.

My point is that while it may be true that you are offended, the targets of her words have been gravely injured by her "vitriolic barbs."

I think that's the real core of our disagreement. I think the targets of her barbs generally love it. They get free, sympathetic publicity as martyrs created by Ann. And anyone who subsequently launches a more reasonable attack on the targets of her barbs gets lumped together with Ann.

The evidence of the effectiveness of her attack grows every day.

I must have missed that. I think you equate "effectiveness" with "publicity". Michael Moore got an awful lot of publicity for his "side", and was the epitome of preaching to the converted. Yet I'd bet that he alienated a lot more people than he ever persuaded, pushed his party farther to the left, and ended up having a net negative effect for liberals in the 2004 election. He became the poster child for what voters would see if they elected Kerry, and I'm guessing a lot of them didn't like that.

That's Ann in a nutshell. Even if she's right, the manner in which she chooses to make her point makes her "effective", but not in the way we'd prefer. She the boogeyman for the left.

[soccermom]

"I think that's the real core of our disagreement. I think the targets of her barbs generally love it. They get free, sympathetic publicity as martyrs created by Ann. And anyone who subsequently launches a more reasonable attack on the targets of her barbs gets lumped together with Ann."

Exactly! Before this, no one in apolitical America knew who the Jersey Girls were. For all Ann's protestations, the "human shield" tactic didn't work. It didn't get Kerry elected. No one listened to the Jersey girls then and the post-election American public has written Sheehan off. Coulter has brought them right back to the forefront and made them sympathetic characters.

I know that I was kind of glad to see the vitriol from Michael Moore and Moveon.org because it made Kerry look bad and helped Bush win. Why are these people so deluded as to not realize the "Jersey Girls" love these attacks?