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.
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It fits in the chapter where Ann is pointing out that liberals are too arrogant to debate honestly. They have consequently adopted the system of using people's distresses to make them unassailable spokespeople for the liberal ideology.The Jersey GirlsTM are not the only widows of victims of the 9/11 sneak attack, but journalism treats them as if they were just that because they are reliably left-wing. The Jersey Girls can attack George Bush in particular and Republicans in general, but it would be "cruel" for Ann to point out that that is a partisan position which we are not obligated to agree with. Ann breaks the liberals' taboos, in the process pointing out that taboos is just what they are.
What it boils down to is that "grieving mother" Shehan and the "grieving widow" Jersey Girls are of a piece with the "Wellstone Memorial Democratic Pep Rally."
I heard Ann live and in person today with Sean Hannity at the Huntington Book Revue (book store). I got her to autograph my copy of her book, and identified myself by my FR screen name. Which she was nice enough to recognize, and express appreciation of.
What is it they say sh!t happens.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRR and AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH
So you want the Carvilles and the Begalas of our country to dictate our level of discourse? That is lowering the bar so far we might as well duke it out in outhouses during elections.
Anne Coulter or 4 widows using their sympathy status to endorse Democrats for office?
Thanks my friends. Ann has engaged in an up front battle with members of a pathologically vitriolic party. Time and again, it is ok for these people to accuse President Bush of being a murder and a liar, it is ok for them to suggest that someone shoot him, and, like schoolyard bullies who get surprised when someone punches them back, they quickly resort to embarrassing in hysterics. It can't be said enough that liberalism is a mental disorder.
"... we might as well duke it out in outhouses during elections."
Civil war? Not a bad idea. ;-)
Let me see...pose for Playboy......shoot the President between the eyes........hhhhhhmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnn
I'm no Coulter fan, but she has really nailed them to the wall on this one........
PC has made it IMPOSSIBLE to counter the claims of sloganeering proffessional victims like Cindy, without facing the catterwail of PC-induced criticism...
AMericans have grown tired of PC sloganeering, and being afraid to speak thier minds against it........
Nail on the head. That is it in a nutshell (plus telling them their husbands might have wanted to divorce them and they should pose in Playboy.)
Because -- and I'll say this as politely as possible -- she is acting like she is. There is nothing the least bit dignified about her mourning, and people will draw conclusions based on her behavior.
And -- I'll be as polite as possible here also -- those conclusions are not automatically wrong.
Now, it may be that grief has so twisted her up inside that she is clueless as to how many will perceive her. Or it may be that the veil has long been cast aside and she really is having fun. It would not be something without precedent.
A new record. 250 posts on an Ann Coulter thread, and only one picture.
It's not a prophecy, it's my opinion. My opinion is that Ann jumped the shark. How that is measured is another matter.
It's Coulter being Coulter.
She is!
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