Ann Coulter: America's fiery, blond commentatrix [MARK STEYN on ANN COULTER!]

www.macleans.ca ^ | June 21, 2006 | Mark Steyn

[RonDog]

MARK STEYN

Ann Coulter: America's fiery, blond commentatrix

June 21, 2006

One crack about 9/11 widows and the author of Godless loses her audience. Too bad.

MARK STEYN

Ann Coulter's new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a rollicking read very tightly reasoned and hard to argue with. After all, the progressive mind regards it as backward and primitive to let religion determine every aspect of your life, but takes it as advanced and enlightened to have the state determine every aspect of your life. Lest you doubt the left's pieties are now a religion, try this experiment: go up to an environmental activist and say "Hey, how about that ozone hole closing up?" or "Wow! The global warming peaked in 1998 and it's been getting cooler for almost a decade. Isn't that great?" and then look at the faces. As with all millenarian doomsday cults, good news is a bummer.

But nobody's talking too much about the finer points of Miss Coulter's argument. Instead, everyone -- from Hillary Rodham Clinton down -- is going bananas about a couple of paragraphs on page 103 and 112 in which the author savages the 9/11 widows. Not all of them. Just the quartet led by Kristen Breitweiser and known as "the Jersey Girls." These four widows have been regular fixtures in the New York TV studios since they first emerged to complain that the average $1.6 million-per-family compensation was insufficient. The 9/11 commission, in all its ghastly second-guessing showboating, was largely their project. As Miss Coulter writes:

"These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. The whole nation was wounded, all of our lives reduced. But they believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process. These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

And at that point Senator Clinton jumped in to denounce the incendiary blond commentatrix as (dread word) "mean-spirited." Maybe so. But in 2004, the Jersey Girls publicly endorsed John Kerry's campaign for president: they inserted themselves into the political arena and chose sides. That being so, to demand that they be insulated from the normal rough 'n' tumble of partisan politics merely because of their biography seems absurd. There are any number of 9/11 widows. A few are big George W. Bush supporters, many are apolitical. I was honoured to receive an email the other day from Deena Gilbey, a British subject whose late husband worked on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center and remained in the building to help evacuate his colleagues. A few days later, U.S. Immigration sent Mrs. Gilbey a letter informing her that, as she was now a widow, her residence status had changed and they were enclosing a deportation order. Having legally admitted to the country the men who killed her husband, the U.S. government's first act after having enabled his murder is to further traumatize the bereaved.

The heartless brain-dead bonehead penpusher who sent out that letter is far more "mean-spirited" than Miss Coulter at full throttle. Yet Mrs. Gilbey isn't courted by the TV bookers the way the Jersey Girls are. Hundreds of soldiers' moms believe their sons died in a noble and just cause in Iraq, but it's Cindy Sheehan, who calls Bush "the biggest terrorist in the world," who gets speaking engagements across America, Canada, Britain, Europe and Australia. When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi winds up pushing up daisy cutters, the media don't go to Paul Bigley, who rejoiced that the man who decapitated his brother would now "rot in hell," nor the splendid Aussie Douglas Wood, who called his kidnappers "arseholes," nor his fellow hostage Ulf Hjertstrom, a Swede who's invested 50,000 bucks or so in trying to track down the men who kidnapped him and visit a little reciprocal justice on them. No, instead, the media rush to get the reaction of Michael Berg, who thinks Bush is "the real terrorist" rather than the man who beheaded his son.

But it wasn't until Ann Coulter pointed it out that you realize how heavily the Democratic party is invested in irreproachable biography. For example, John Kerry's pretzel-twist of a war straddle in the 2004 campaign relied mainly on former senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee from a Vietnam grenade accident whom the campaign dispatched to stake out Bush's Crawford ranch that summer. Maybe he's still down there. It's gotten kinda crowded on the perimeter since then, what with Cindy Sheehan et al. But the idea is that you can't attack what Max Cleland says about war because, after all, you've got most of your arms and legs and he hasn't. This would normally be regarded as the unworthy tactic of snake-oil-peddling shyster evangelists and, indeed, the Dems eventually scored their perfect Elmer Gantry moment. In 2004, in the gym of Newton High School in Iowa, Senator John Edwards skipped the dreary Kerry-as-foreign-policy-genius pitch and cut straight to the Second Coming. "We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases . . . When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." Mr. Reeve had died the previous weekend, but he wouldn't have had Kerry and Edwards been in the White House. Read his lips: no new crutches. The healing balm of the Massachusetts Messiah will bring the crippled and stricken to their feet, which is more than Kerry's speeches ever do for the able-bodied. As the author remarks, "If one wanted to cure the lame, one could reasonably start with John Edwards."

"What crackpot argument can't be immunized by the Left's invocation of infallibility based on personal experience?" wonders Miss Coulter of Cleland, Sheehan, the Jersey Girls and Co. "If these Democrat human shields have a point worth making, how about allowing it to be made by someone we're allowed to respond to?"

Now that's a point worth making. As it is, thanks to Coulter cracks like "Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy," even chaps on the right are doing the more-in-sorrow shtick and saying that they've been making the same basic argument as Ann and it's such a shame she had to go too far with her cheap shots because that's discredited the entire argument, etc.

The trouble with this line is that hardly anyone was objecting to the professional widow routine pre-Coulter. Well, that's not strictly true. Yours truly objected. After the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, I wrote:

"The first reaction of the news shows to the verdict was to book some relative of the 9/11 families and ask whether they were satisfied with the result, as if the prosecution of the war on terror is some kind of national-security Megan's Law on which they have inviolable proprietorial rights. Sorry, but that's not what happened that Tuesday morning. The thousands who died were not targeted as individuals: they were killed because they were American, not because somebody in a cave far away decided to murder Mrs. Smith. . . It's not about 'closure' for the victims; it's about victory for the nation."

But nobody paid the slightest heed to this line. For all the impact my column had, I might as well have done house calls. Then Coulter comes in and yuks it up with the Playboy-spread gags, and suddenly the Jersey Girls only want to do the super-extra-fluffy puffball interviews. So two paragraphs in Ann Coulter's book have succeeded in repositioning these ladies: they may still be effective Democrat hackettes, but I think TV shows will have a harder time passing them off as non-partisan representatives of the 9/11 dead.

So, on balance, hooray for Miss Coulter. If I were to go all sanctimonious and priggish, I might add that, in rendering their "human shield" strategy more problematic, she may be doing Democrats a favour. There's no evidence the American people fall for this shtick: in 2002, the party's star Senate candidates all ran on biography -- Max Cleland, Jean Carnahan (the widow of a deceased governor), and Walter Mondale (the old lion pressed into service after Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash). All lost. Using "messengers whom we're not allowed to reply to" doesn't solve the Democrats' biggest problem: their message. The Dems, says the author, have "become the 'Lifetime' TV network of political parties." But, except within the Democrat-media self-reinforcing cocoon, it's not that popular. A political party with a statistically improbable reliance on the bereaved shouldn't be surprised that it spends a lot of time in mourning -- especially on Wednesday mornings every other November.

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[AndyJackson]

A few days later, U.S. Immigration sent Mrs. Gilbey a letter informing her that, as she was now a widow, her residence status had changed and they were enclosing a deportation order. Having legally admitted to the country the men who killed her husband, the U.S. government's first act after having enabled his murder is to further traumatize the bereaved.

We need to forever express our embarassment and apologies to this poor woman. We also need to know who was the heartless SOB who did this - his name - and the name of his boss. We need to know whether they are still in their posts, or whether they are now keeping our border secure in the arctic circle.

[TAdams8591]

Yet Mrs. Gilbey isn't courted by the TV bookers the way the Jersey Girls are. Hundreds of soldiers' moms believe their sons died in a noble and just cause in Iraq, but it's Cindy Sheehan, who calls Bush "the biggest terrorist in the world," who gets speaking engagements across America, Canada, Britain, Europe and Australia. When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi winds up pushing up daisy cutters, the media don't go to Paul Bigley, who rejoiced that the man who decapitated his brother would now "rot in hell," nor the splendid Aussie Douglas Wood, who called his kidnappers "arseholes," nor his fellow hostage Ulf Hjertstrom, a Swede who's invested 50,000 bucks or so in trying to track down the men who kidnapped him and visit a little reciprocal justice on them. No, instead, the media rush to get the reaction of Michael Berg, who thinks Bush is "the real terrorist" rather than the man who beheaded his son."

Exactly! But now that we have a strong and ever-growing conservative media, we should give a voice to the victims the MSM, will not. They most deserve one.

[JCEccles]

not in chapters eight and nine, it isn't.

Coulter attacks Darwinist faith claims, not science. It is the Darwinist faith claims which form the unholy black soul of liberalism. If you cannot tell the difference between Darwinist faith claims and evidence-based science, you are hopeless.

No one nails the atheist Darwinist faith squealers quite as effectively as Coulter. If you don't like the pain, step away from the target.

[najida]

Does it really bother you THAT much that we all don't agree with you?

I have a brain,
I use it....

A am an individual.

[Jeff Chandler]

even chaps on the right are doing the more-in-sorrow shtick and saying that ... it's such a shame she had to go too far with her cheap shots because that's discredited the entire argument, etc.

I love you, man, but Ann and Mark are right.

[goldstategop]

The Democrats are the party of overly emotional females. Liberalism is the ultimate in feminine philosophy. And the Democrats are not called "The Mommy Party" for nothing. Even the men... seem well, overly touchy-feely.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[pgyanke]

Does it really bother you THAT much that we all don't agree with you?

You don't have to agree with me... you were trying to bully me into agreeing with you. You are welcome to not use Ann's tactics as you see them as distasteful. I am not wrong, though, to support her and the impact she has had precisely because of those tactics.

This is a point you tried to rebuff and correct over and over--that Steyn agrees with as well. I merely pinged you to this thread so you can overcome your bias that I am wrong to think her tone and message are both essential to spreading her ideas.

[kayak]

Ping, in case you haven't seen this.

[najida]

I apologize if you though I was trying to bully you into changing your opinion. I got the impression you were trying to do the same with me....

I don't want you to change your opinion because of me....
I would want you to change because it's what you truly believe....otherwise, it's just lemmings jumping.

As I've stated repeatedly,
I used to be a fan of Ann's, but I am one no longer. Nor do I desire to change back to being a fan.

She and her opinions and behavior mean not one wit to me.

[pgyanke]

Bye then.

[najida]

LOL!
You're the one who pinged me!

Hrmpt, see if I make a 'nanner puddin' fer yer birthday.

[RonDog]

...Absolutely correct - which is why I suspect Steyn's observation : "But nobody paid the slightest heed to this line. For all the impact my column had, I might as well have done house calls.

Then Coulter comes in and yuks it up with the Playboy-spread gags, and suddenly the Jersey Girls only want to do the super-extra-fluffy puffball interviews.

So two paragraphs in Ann Coulter's book have succeeded in repositioning these ladies: they may still be effective Democrat hackettes,

but I think TV shows will have a harder time passing them off as non-partisan representatives of the 9/11 dead." is the REAL reason why the Leftards are in such a twitter.

Bingo!

As Ann herself describes it -- in the TRANSCRIPT of her interview with Jay Leno, posted on the "after action" thread:

LENO: It's so different than the way I work. Maybe because I'm a comic. See, my thing is, it's sort of more flies with honey. You make your point even if you get a couple of digs in, you make your point.

Whereas it seems to me, the words you've used have overshadowed the point what you were trying to make, to the point where people are upset about you attacking the widows, they don't understand the point you were trying to make.

And I think most people still don't understand the point you were trying to make...

--snip --

COULTER: ...No, I think that is not true, actually.

I mean, other people have written acerbic little remarks about Democrats sending out victims, Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, these four women from New Jersey, making the exact same points Howard Dean could be making, but we can attack Howard Dean.

But in this case, their husbands died, their son died, we can't respond. And I don't think the nation's attention has ever been riveted on this victim as spokesman as it has in the last week.

I don't think that trick's going to work anymore.

[pgyanke]

I pinged you because you were very passionate about your subject the other day. Today it "mean[s] not one wit to me."

There's no point in discussing something that means nothing to you... so goodbye.

[Junior]

Ann Coulter's new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a rollicking read very tightly reasoned and hard to argue with.

Did he read the same book we did?

I like Steyn; maybe he's come down with the flu or something.

[js1138]

Hormones?

[najida]

Seems I'm in good company in my opinion on Ann Coulter's work. Would you like to take issue with Mark Steyn as you did with me for making many of the same points the other day?

This is not an invitation to debate, this is a "See! I'm right cuz he said it!" post. I'm not interested in that, nor would anyone with a spine be interested in that.

Bye now sugar.

[King Prout]

Coulter's citations are generally bogus, and her interpretations and characterizations would be laughable were it not for the fact that so many slackjawed decerebrates took her opinions on the subject seriously.

[kallisti]

Not to mention Dennis K, Souter...she sure can write!

[bfree]

Go clean your house. You really are a pompous windbag.

[najida]

I don't do housework....
Don't have a dirt gene.

Pompous windbag?

Nah, I like bloodsucky harpy much better :)

Again,
It really gets to you guys that folks don't agree with you....so funny.