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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but 100% correct.
The double-standard is intriguing considering that the Jersey Girls, Dixie Chicks, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon and JFKerry (yeah, he belongs) have been saying 'classless' and outrageous things about President Bush.
Look, Davis, if the truth of my statement ("Because, as members of the Church of Liberalism you are supposed to venerate the Saint Jerseys." ) didn't get through to you, then you haven't understood any of what is going on in this argument.
What does the Bible say about widows abandoning their infant children for the spotlight of attention from those who would exploit their grief.
KJ, I diagree wholeheartedly with you that Ann screwed up. You will find no evidence of that tomorrow, the next day, or in November.
Well, if you read Ann's work much, she attacks not only the ideas, but also the individuals, very harshly.
If you are telling me the comments were not necessary, I'd agree. Nothing Ann or 95% of other pundits say is necessary. She is trying to sell books. And being outrageous is her schtick and has been since day one. Her reply to Hillary today was classic. And downright mean.
drive-by annointment!
Taht has to be it. Chrissy Matthews and Larry King said so.
They don't. The point is that Coulter's comments were a reflection of how the widows abused their positions, as did the Comptroller, and the 'posing for Playboy' statement means that they would just continue to do so for furthering an agenda, be it financial or political. She is really just following the old Limbaugh adage of demonstrating the absurd by BEING absurd. Quite effective if you ask me.
Hey I got an idea, don't buy her book, and, oh yeah, also, don't ever, ever make a mistake yourself.
Politics is a bit different than defending your home in family. In defending my family, I'd shoot an intruder, and if anyone tries to attack my wife, I hope she'd use that .38 that I bought for her after we moved to this neighborhood. However, if I go into the political area, I'm not going to go looking to shoot my opponent because they're opposing me. There should be and is a different standard for women. What Ann Richards said at the 1988 Democratic convention was crass and in bad taste, but to be honest, the reason I had a problem with it was because Ann Richards had said it as opposed to say, Andrew Richards.
That is how I was raised, my mother went to finishing school and so did my wife. My father would cuss in the house often, but I never heard my mother use any swear word stronger than hell or damn. I came to expect certain things out of women, and for personal conduct, I've set different standards for my daughters than I have for my son's, and my wife has agreed with me on this.
I have no problem with women entering politics, but to be honest, when I'm voting for a woman, I vote for her assuming she will not make waves, she will try to work things out, I vote for her based on how one expects a woman to act. When women start acting as men would then I have a problem, because not only do they attack as a man would, but you as a man can't fight back because you have to talk a certain way to women.
Sign of the times, perhaps. Unless there are pics of her jumping the shark. ;^)
Those women did nothing but use their husband's deaths in a partisan way to attack republicans.
THEY are the ones who are classless, and maybe even a little sick. They deserve no respect at all and should receive none. What they did makes them as much of a political target as anyone else in politics with an agenda to promote.
They were really nothing more than props for the left media anyway. Just take a step back and look at it all, and some questions come to mind.
How did they meet each other? Is it an accident that these women met up and all happen to believe the same thing and go to the media while most others were ignored?
How did they manage to get in the press so heavily? If a small group of other widows wanted to get together and speak out against Clinton for 8 years of NO ACTION against terrorists, would they get the same press coverage?
They are nothing but tools for a media show to go after Bush and republicans, and they are playing it to the max. To hell with them all, they are fodder.
Only if the msm says it is. Ann says it is not fair and she won't play by their rules and here we are saying; oh yes you will. What gives?
And Ann is using it to sell her book!
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