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.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
I love Ann, but she did go a little overboard. What has been missed though is the Republican reaction to it. On two shows I saw Republican strategy folks DEFENDING her. This is quite a change from the rope a dope we have been using for the last 6 months. Creeps like Murtha will now be taking on fire when they open their hate america mouths. The fall campaign opened today, and I think a lot of people missed it.
That's the problem. You think this is a boxing match. It's Ultimate Combat Cage Fighting. You go into that ring with regulation gloves and see how long you last. The left has been throwing low blows, gouging out eyes, kicking, and using knives in their gloves for 4 years now.
It's about time someone on the right stepped up and used an axe.
I wasn't talking about politics - I was talking about the attacks on our Nation by both the terrorists and the pro-abortion, anti-family and those who deny the Creator.
The 9/11 Widows
Americans are beginning to tire of them.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
"I watched my husband murdered live on TV. . . . At any point in time the casualties could have been lessened, and it seems to me there wasn't even an attempt made."
--Monica Gabrielle
"Three thousand people were murdered on George Bush's watch."
-- Kristin Breitweiser
when group leader Kristin Breitweiser spoke of her disappointment in the press, complaining to one journalist, "I've been scheduled to go on 'Meet the Press' and 'Hardball' so many times, and I'm always canceled."
the Jersey Girls appeared on "Hardball," to charge that the national security adviser had failed to do her job, that the government failed to provide a timely military response, that the president had spent time reading to schoolchildren after learning of the attack, that intelligence agencies had failed to connect the dots.
A fair number of the Americans not working in the media may, on the other hand, by now be experiencing Jersey Girls Fatigue--or taking a hard look at the pronouncements of the widows. Statements like that of Monica Gabrielle, for example (not one of the Jersey Girls, though an activist of similar persuasion), who declared that she could discern no attempt to lessen the casualties on Sept. 11. What can one make of such a description of the day that saw firefighters by the hundreds lose their lives in valiant attempts to bring people to safety from the burning floors of the World Trade Center--that saw deeds like that of Morgan Stanley's security chief, Rick Rescorla, who escorted 2,700 employees safely out of the South Tower, before he finally lost his own life?
declarations like that of Ms. Breitweiser, announcing that "President Bush and his workers . . . were the individuals that failed my husband and the 3,000 people that day."
Asked what question she would put to Ms. Rice, if she could, one Jersey Girl answered, after some thought, that it would be, What did she know and when did she know it?
http://tinyurl.com/rvr9x
Maybe you are tired like I am, so I am goint to cut you slack on that. BJ was impeached for lying under oath in a sexual harrassement suit, so his testimony was material and relevant, constituting perjury. You know that of course. The only reason I brought up the topic of BJ was your comment that all publicity is good publicity or some such. I could find it again if need be.
A member of the group the "Jersey Girls," who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks, is defending 9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick against allegations that, as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, she blocked critical intelligence that had identified the two 9/11 hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center.
http://tinyurl.com/pes2p
Oooh, I like that little thingy. I would hardly use the word hysterical, as I haven't manifested any hysteria, just common sense words that many freepers agree with. But, I'll work on my hysteria, and see if I can conjure some up.
I like legs with some definition. I don't care how long bread sticks are, they're still bread sticks. Coulter needs to take some time off and eat something. She might be half way attractive with 15-20 pounds on her.
"Her methods suck, and she is doing a great disservice to conservatism, buy, hey she's loud...so that's good, right? Crap, when did we start applauding the sh*tty behavior we abhor in Dems?"
Suck, crap, sh*tty? And Ann supposedly is classless?
Wow. I feel so dressed down. All this time I've been saying the UN should dictate things, you caught me. Defend that statement by Ann about the deceased husbands, all of you Ann-defenders have avoided it. Here it is again:
"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."
Kristen Breitweiser:
To date, you have done practically nothing to secure our ports, nuclear power plants, and mass transportation systems. Imagine if the billions of dollars you spent in Iraq were spent more wisely on those things here at home. Imagine what sort of alternative energy resources (bio-diesel, wind power, solar power, and hybrid automobiles) could have been researched and funded in the past three years. Talk about regaining the respect and support of the world, that is the one way to do it.
Karl, if you “understand 9/11”, then why don't you understand that until we have a more environmentally friendly energy policy, we cannot effectively fight the war on terrorism. By being dependent on foreign oil, we have no choice but to cozy up to nations that sponsor terrorists. Moreover, because of oil, we may end up placing our troops and our nation at greater risk by having to invade certain oil-rich countries. Our invasion of these countries merely serves to inflame would-be terrorists by reinforcing their notion that we are gluttonous and self-centered -- invading sovereign nations solely to steal their oil. Forgive me Karl, but is that how you think you "win hearts and minds"? Does that help in any way to "spread democracy"?
http://tinyurl.com/jbevj
Michael Moore was so outrageous, he ended up being a liability for the left.
It can happen to our side, as well.
To the Editor:
Re "Newsweek Says It Is Retracting Koran Report" (front page, May 17):
I find it ironic that the White House is demanding more than a retraction from Newsweek over its report that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had tried to unnerve detainees by desecrating the Koran.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said: "The report had real consequences. People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged."
Mr. McClellan said Newsweek's retraction was a "good first step."
As a 9/11 widow who witnessed worldwide support of the United States after 9/11, now, I witness wide hatred of America.
Such hatred has little to do with the Newsweek article. It has everything to do with the Bush administration's pre-emptive war in Iraq. A war based on dead wrong intelligence that has cost thousands of lives. A war based on faulty reasons that have never been retracted, let alone fully explained to the American people or the world.
Mr. McClellan speaks of journalistic standards. How about executive-branch standards that should be met before taking a country into a false war, a war that has made the entire world less safe?
I am all for accountability and retractions. But such things need to start at the top.
Kristen Breitweiser
http://tinyurl.com/erc8y
Biden Nods as Breitweiser Claims Tenet, FBI Agents Merit Death as Much as Moussaoui
Hardball/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein
Posted on 05/03/2006 3:27:28 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
http://tinyurl.com/kq358
I'm just a poster here.
So, flaglady, do you think Ann's comments suggesting the deceased husbands may have wanted to leave their wives and children helped? Obviously, you must. I'd like to hear why.
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