Posted on 06/07/2006 4:51:37 PM PDT by new yorker 77
Conservative author Ann Coulter sparked a storm on Wednesday after describing a group of September 11 widows who backed the Democratic Party as millionaire "witches" reveling in their status as celebrities.
"I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," Coulter writes in her book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," published on Tuesday, referring to four women who headed a campaign that resulted in the creation of the September 11 Commission that investigated the hijacked plane attacks.
Coulter wrote that the women were millionaires as a result of compensation settlements and were "reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis."
A spokeswoman for publisher Crown Forum said it had set a first print run of 1 million copies of "Godless" and there were 1.5 million copies of Coulter's previous four books in print.
The four women, Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie Van Auken, declined to discuss the book in detail but issued a statement saying they had been slandered.
"There was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again," said the statement signed by the four, along with a fifth woman, Monica Gabrielle.
The four women, who live in or around East Brunswick, New Jersey, became friends after September 11 and formed a group that agitated for the investigation. "Our only motivation ever was to make our nation safer," they said.
Coulter, whose books include the bestseller "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," argues in the new book the women she dubs "the Witches of East Brunswick" wanted to blame President George W. Bush for not preventing the attacks.
She criticized them for making a campaign advertisement for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and added: "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."
PERSONAL ATTACKS
Asked by Reuters why she made such personal comments, Coulter said by e-mail, "I am tired of victims being used as billboards for untenable liberal political beliefs."
"A lot of Americans have been seething over the inanities of these professional victims for some time," she added.
Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record) of New Jersey said Coulter's "shameless attack" on the widows sparked disgust. "Her bookselling antics and accompanying vulgarity deserve our deepest contempt," he said in a statement.
The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News. Corp., slammed the comments in an article on Wednesday headlined: "Righty writer Coulter hurls nasty gibes at 9/11 gals."
Coulter, a regular television commentator who is hugely popular among some conservatives, was challenged on NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday over what host Matt Lauer called "dramatic" remarks, prompting her to say, "You are getting testy with me."
Coulter is known for a combative column after September 11 saying, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." In one book, she wrote, "Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like liberals do."
Her latest comments were quoted on radio stations in New York on Wednesday and the book was the subject of debate on Web sites such as www.salon.com. The Daily News newspaper's front-page headline was "Coulter the Cruel."
The controversy appeared to be doing no harm to sales of Coulter's latest book, which was listed as the second-best seller of the day at online retailer Amazon.com on Wednesday afternoon.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
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I didn't realize being a complete lout was a required characteristic.
It5 is beyond me why politicians think their comments are needed here.
Not by suggesting their dead husbands (American victims of terrorists) were about to divorce them. Ann blew it.
>>How do we know they weren't planning on killing their husbands? How do we know they didn't eat their newborn babies? How do we know they don't sacrifice black cats to Satan in their basements?
That nonsense is just baseless slander.<<
No, what it is is bringing into question just how negatively impacted they were by their husbands deaths. She is trying to amplify and expand the context in which their political activity took place. She is saying we really don't know where they are coming from and should be reticent to be impacted by anything they said, yet many people took their stories and "sincerity" hook, line and sinker.
Sinkspur, you need to get some religion!
I agree with you. The most annoying and hypocritical thing is that Ann is touting her book as being a Christian viewpoint. The Bible is replete with admonitions to treat widows kindly:
http://www.biblebb.com/files/tniv/WIDOW.TXT
I don't care how mercenary and opportunistic some (a small minority) of 9-11 widows are. They still deserve some kindness, from a stictly Christian viewpoint.
No, it should not have been CENSORED by some silly editor. These women have operated ENTIRELY out of the field of widowhood and, like a terrorist, they do not clothe themselves in the uniform of a pundit but the uniform of a widow and hide amongst the widows sniping.
You are incorrect on the "idea" that she "screwed up". Every body is talking about her message right this minute.
While that is a possibility it's also possible that Ann really is a true believer and is just plain sick and tired of giving the lib/rats center stage all the time.
From our colleges to our political institutions to our media, we cave to them almost on command. She is fighting back. Does she always say the perfect thing all the time? Possibly not.But that does not mean she does not believe in what she espouses. I think there is much more to Ann Coulter than just a bookseller.
Rock on, Ann.
I agree, I never suspected before the promotion for this book that Ann Coulter might consider herself a Christian.
With people like Ann on our side, who needs enemies?
She's a shrill, anorexic harpy.
If you can count, dfj, the "some" is exactly FOUR. It is EXACTLY THAT SMALL "SOME" that Ann is harping on.
She is in no jam and she will not get a beating.
Ann has to be loving this. LOL!
I don't like them and I don't like what they are doing but I think that comment crosses the line. Sometimes there's something to be said for taking the high road.
And that was just a few months ago.
Let's hope.
You appear to be the one making her the topic. The majority of us here are talking about the Jersey Saints, not Ann.
They do not get a free pass from most people in NJ. They disgrace themselves.
You are almost as unkind as Ann Coulter.
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