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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LOL. I don't blame you for taking that tack, there is no wind behind your sails. Just for fun, can you find one leftist comment I've made in my time here? You still haven't defended Ann's indefensible statements. Very odd, indeed. LOL.
I hate jumping in on post 113 when there are over 500, but I think she has actually done us a favor.
When Ann is done with her sometimes over-the-top rhetoric then I can say, "You know, we have to wonder why the widows who hate Bush become celebrities, but those who don't are ignored." If Ann hadn't drawn the fire way up over the top, then I could be attacked for questioning their "absolute moral authority." But thanks to Ann I can bring the subject up and look like a moderate doing it. What she's done is widened the spectrum so moderation is truly more in the middle.
And if she happens to get rich re-establishing the proper place of moderation, I'm not jealous.
Really, I'm not.
Shalom.
It is actually time to put an end to this thoughtcop tactic of bringing widows to the national forum. It is the old you can't win the debate so you shut it down with this victims. How dare you question _______ after what they have been through?
Their fake outrage is just another way to dehumanize her voice. Her book likely exposes the Religion of Liberalism.
Maybe this will help put an end to it?
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
She also has editors.
Shalom.
It certainly has been instructive around here the past two days to see who is running from Coulter like scared bunny rabbits.
Very good analysis, thanks!
You're welcome, but I am a bit of a liar.
I'm a tad jealous.
Shalom.
Gorelick didnt testify because she would be led away in handcuffs.
As Ann Coulter reminds us, they personalized it so, they completely ignore the fact that the terrorists attacked AMERICA .. it wasn't a plot to take out the Jersey girls' husbands.
Why are Ann's comments so indefesible?
There is a huge difference between supporting these women and making baseless attacks on them that make them look like victims in the eyes of the clueless all over again.
If you have to resort to personal attacks, you have no argument.
I think you are confusing me with someone else, or you are misinformed.
Since when do I take it easy on liberals?
No! Just makes the arguement a little shorter. If they are that clueless they will never get it.
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