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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Well, doc, you believe whatever you want. I don't think Coulter knows the first thing about Christian charity.
Sorry Azalea, I had to stop after your first sentence and respond:
Hell!! Azalea, MEN aren't supposed to have balls, these days!!!
Not when your name is Ann Coulter. She makes her living at this. I'm still yet to be offended by her "let's invade their countries and convert them to Christianity" comment.
"Using sideshow tactics and over the top rhetoric in an attempt to draw attention to yourself is wrong, no matter what your argument is."
I don't agree with that at all, we live in an age of left wing sideshow tactics and over the top rhetoric, the left should quit trying to influence public policy by using victims, the society at large is growing tired of it, and is becoming less responsive. The left has mastered the policy thru victim game, Ann is right to expose it. People can go on and on about how unclassy it is etc, that is, as usual, a change of subject, but there is a huge constituency that is growing tired of victims using their personal tragedies to gain access to power. Cindy Sheehan is much less beloved by society at large, than she is by the media and "progressives", victim fatigue is settling in, and it is long overdue. Lots of people are going to see Ann's point, this is the kind of thing where it is real easy to act shocked, but the longer the conversation the more it turns in the right direction...
He'd offer her a sandwich.
Pot to kettle.
Not BITE the prisoner, simply threaten the prisoner.
This makes me ill.
???
:-)
that is called "humor". Go read some PJ O'Rourke and you will see what I mean.
Those Jersey Girls sure look creepy in that picture.
Because of the Jersey girls?
Or is it because of the whining about the Homeland Security money?
"Did you type that with a straight face?! "
Yes sir/ma'am, I did type it with a straight face. Ann is provocative, that's what she does. She is doing a great job of it as you can see from the discussion on this thread.
We're not talking about sexual indescretions here, Palladin.
I like your tagline!
You know, I agree with you, because the Christianity comment was intended to be ironic based in the objectives of our enemies.
I am just having a difficult time trying to figure out what exactly she was trying to say in this case because it was very, very personal and did not align with things they themselves have said.
That makes it seem like a good old fashioned flame war to me. Or, as my mother used to say, a cat fight.
Exactly and it's not wrong to expose that IMHO. Is it true that some of these victims families really abused the systems up there OF?
Everyone was talking about Clinton's BJ too.
Go find that other post about finding a corner to whimper in. Then go find a corner.
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