9/11 widows and words that offend (Ann Coulter Once Again)

Star Newspapers - Chicago ^ | Sunday, July 2, 2006 | Michael Bowers

[Chi-townChief]

OK, she's mean, evil, vile, a witch. Get it all out. Dump on Ann Coulter. I'm not going to get in the way of this bandwagon, just like I wouldn't get in the way of a truck.

But once the Angry Lefties have exhausted their rage, I'd like to know if any would consider the possibility that one time too many they have played the card marked "suffering victim reviles Bush."

Consider the comments that set off the current tempest:

1) "These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted like 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."

My verdict: Fair comment.

2) "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis."

My verdict: Fair comment, but this is starting to make me uncomfortable.

3) "I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."

My verdict: Baffling. Coulter had to know that once she wrote the word "enjoying," her essential message would be lost in the uproar. Why didn't she write "exploiting"? It would have made her point just as well.

4) "And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

My verdict: Just stupid.

[Louis Foxwell]

Ann is brilliant in her satire, ridicule and blasphemy of leftist shibboleths.
Stupid? Maybe, but stupid like a fox.

[WHBates]

The bottom line is that no one should have received money from the government from this. Their own life insurance, if any, should have taken care of it. As an example, if my or anyones spouse or relative suddenly gets killed in an accident or murder or whatever, isn't it equally tragic? This was a stupid idea, now everyone wants the government to pay and rightfully so.

Don't loose sight of the fact that congress was attempting to keep the airlines from going under from the resulting lawsuits.

I lost my wife less than a month before 9/11 to breast cancer, leaving me with three boy to raise and it never occurred to me that somebody owed us anything. At first, all of the talk of public money going to the families of the victims made me angry but when you reflect on why it was done it makes a certain amount of sense...Sadly it's the result of living in a litigious society.

[Blue Highway]

Do you ever get the feeling that people like the Jersey Girls and Cindy Sheehan are like part of a coven practicing their evil veiled by their "loss" which gives them a free pass to act and say things irresponsibly.

[burroak]

I'll just post a reply to you as a surrogate for all the others on this thread who hold the notion that Ms Coulter chose her words poorly. Some of her words may have jarred YOUR sensibilities; however, she is very much the wordsmith and each word was vetted by her, the editor, and lawyers. Those were not poorly chosen. They were precisely chosen. They got precisely the intended result.

As proof, those sections were hyped, ridiculed, exploited, and focused the debate on a niggling problem that conservatives were having some difficulty in responding to- the immunized victim criticism. The left took no offense to being labeled "Godless".

To have taken on the major thesis of the book would have left them in an indefensible position. By throwing out the inflammatory words about the JG's, she reeled in liberals who were all to ready to quit the debate of liberalism as a religion and take on what looked like an all to easy dismissal of Ms. Coulter as a loose cannon.

At the end of the day, all of Ms. Coulter's objectives met precisely because she chose those exact words which you find poorly chosen.

[OkeyDokeyOkie]

"Doesn't sound like they're having a terrible time with being flown around the country, eating steak dinners while staying in nice hotels, and making money off giving speeches. If they hated it, they wouldn't be doing it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They are victims, all right...victims of the Cindy Sheehan Syndrome. Americans sympathized with all the victims' survivors and demonstrated their sympathy with (in some cases obscenely large)monetary compensation. But these women have exploited their grief and have turned it into an even greater financial windfall and most despicable of all, a hateful and uninformed political screech...financed by our tax dollars.

[OkeyDokeyOkie]

The writer's timing is on the mark! Just as some of the Supremes are shedding tears over the "rights and privileges" of accused terrorist detainees, Michael Bowers reminds us of how some others are exploiting this nation with their own demands for special privileges. The Wonder Widows obviously crave the limelight and are thrilled by the sound of their shrill political cat calls.

[contra9602]

This four harpies exploited their husbands death so they could help the very same democrat party that decimated CIA in the 70s
and build the great chinese wall between the goverment agencies in the 90s. This kind of party loyalty can only be reached if you follow their ideology like a religion. Ann Coulter was right on target by going after the Breitweiser Four because they are perfect example that for some people liberalism is the religion.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

[driftless]

"Breitweiser"

Sometimes the simple truth isn't enough for people. Mrs. Breitweiser, like all conspiracy nuts, wants to believe in some nefarious scam perpetrated by people she hates (Republicans)...rather than the Al-Qaeda monsters who actually killed her husband. It's sad enough knowing three thousand people were slaughtered by Islamo-fascist maniacs without being assailed by Dem activists like Breitweiser and the others who look at it as a chance for political gain.

Once "victims" enter the political arena, they are fair game for their opponents. The Jersey Girls chose to slander the president over something he had no control over. They deserve the "outrageousous" comments they receive from Coulter and others. And I'm not a member of the Coulter Claque either.

[driftless]

"bizarre"

Nothing bizarre about it at all. It's simply libs being hypocrites...something they excel at. Michael Moore and other leftists can slander and smear the president and other conservatives constantly and not get rebuked by lib scribblers. But let some conservative write or say something nasty about lib heroes, then that's just awful.

[Cheburashka]

Do you ever get the feeling that people like the Jersey Girls and Cindy Sheehan are like part of a coven practicing their evil veiled by their "loss" which gives them a free pass to act and say things irresponsibly.
---
I call it wellstoning, after the deceased Minnesota senator.

Wellstoning is the cynical exploitation of the death of a loved one as a political tool to make political attacks to which response by the opposition is inhibited by the normal respect given to people who have suffered a loss. We saw it at the Wellstone memorial, we see it at from Cindy Sheehan, and we see it from the Jersey Girls.

In my mind it is a debasement of the admittedly tragic death of the loved one by the deceased's own family member(s), and if after a certain period they continue to engage in it they are more than fair game.

To all the lefties: stop telling lies about us and we'll stop telling the truth about you.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

wellstoning

I like it.

You're right - if they lie about "swiftboating," by all means we should tell the truth about "wellstoning." As Ann has so nobly and so ably done.

[soccermom]

Best commentary I've seen on the whole Coulter/Jersey Girls thing! BUMP!

[soccermom]

"I call it wellstoning, after the deceased Minnesota senator."

OK, but what people seem to forget is that the Wellstone Memorial was a fiasco for Democrats. The voting public saw it for the shameless ploy it was and Republicans won in a tidal wave. So what if democrats want to become the definition of insanity by continuing to use a failed stunt? I think Ann did us a disservice by giving credence to a tactic that would have failed on its own.

[Cheburashka]

The Lefties are demented, they don't care if something works or not, they want to vent their hatred and bile.

[garjog]

"it is her funniest book yet"

Yes, this is a great book. Very persuasive and enlightening. These two sentences are the only questionable lines (and they don't bother me at all.)

If you haven't read it yet, be sure to order a copy. It is hilarious and easy to read.

[MrEdd]

f any of them had written the book instead of Ann, they would have been careful not to offend when they were attempting to make their point about the 9/11 widows. However, the way Ann wrote her book was guaranteed to stir up discussion concerning the points she made. The cries of indignation coming from the liberal left in newspaper articles, TV interviews, and talk radio deploring Ann's language have caused more people to become aware of the "Victim" strategy used by the liberal left to attack the right than would have ever resulted if Ann had used less inflammatory language.

Throw a rock over a fence and the dog that yelps is the one that got hit.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Once "victims" enter the political arena, they are fair game for their opponents. The Jersey Girls chose to slander the president over something he had no control over

Good point.

[roofgoat]

I thought one of the reasons Ann went after the widows is that within a week or two, they had hired either publicists or lawyers to handle potential future financial opportunities?

[irv]

I did read the entire column. Didn't find it very good. A rehash of some points made better by others and some gratuitious shots at Ann. Nothing much worth reading there.