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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If the tables had been turned and a Conservative said what the Jersey's or Sheehan said they would have been excoriated poste-haste by the libs, one reason conservatives keep taking a beating is they keep turning the other cheek.
Can we get an Amen?
You want evidence that my opinion is that Ann blew it? Ok. My opinion is that Ann blew it.
True. But I am from the Old School. I prefer subtlety of wit in a woman; not loudmouthed Carvillian rhetoric.
Her point is not that one liberal or another is an atheist; her point is that liberalism is an atheistic cosmology.The Constitutiton, BTW, is not atheistic but agnostic, not allowing that any group has the authority of received wisdom.
Coulter does not argue, so far as I can tell, from the assumption of her own holiness - she argues from the philosophical perspective that she wants holiness (just as the philosopher argues from the perspective of wanting wisdom, not from the assumption that s/he already is wise.
It appears to me to be objective fact that political liberals reject any truth apart for how things look on TV. To whatever extent that is so, journalists are their gods.
When Savage kissed up to chuck the schmuck I gave up on him, a lot of FR did.
You are going to have a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome in the morning!
Funny how that works... do as I say not as I do.
I remember that! Thanks for reminding me.
I imagine she intimidates more men than she attracts, but being a female she can say things, in humor or jest, that most men, on our side of the aisle, could never say in a million years.
I'm sure you have a point but IMHO I am just tired of conservatives boot licking msm types because they have always done it. time for change.gotta go to bed.this was fun.
absolutely.
You're drunk.
I give up, catch you guys tomorrow.
Yep. That's Coulter's way.
OK where is the quote that calls these millionaires witches.
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