Ann Coulter Hurts the Cause

Let me ask you this: when, prior to last week, was the last time you heard of the Jersey Girls? I can’t give a definite answer, which in itself is telling. Not that I was paying any large amount of attention, but there was a lot of noise in between the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns, intense media play building up to the 2004 election, which they did their damndest to throw to Kerry, and then… nothing.

They’d shot their bolt, they had their fifteen minutes and more, and that was the end of it. Until last week when Ann Coulter, acting unilaterally, put them back on the front pages with an attack so obnoxious that it immediately (and unjustly – it was the Girls themselves, after all, who debased their victim status for political purposes) threw all sympathy in their direction. A free ticket to a second act. Not to mention providing Madame Hillary with an opportunity to pose as, of all things, the defender of civility.

Conservatives used to be known for this kind of thing. Much of this was the media’s doing – at any conservative gathering, be it a gun show or a political convention, reporters will make a beeline for the guy in full camo gear or wearing two dozen anti-UN buttons. But conservatives played their part.

The classic figure here is Coulter’s idol, Joe McCarthy. Bellowing about Communists you couldn’t produce (and it cannot be repeated often enough that McCarthy bagged nobody – the Party infiltrators had been cleaned out by the time he showed up) was bad enough. Doing it in an ill-cut Chicago gangland suit with a five-o’clock shadow and fifth of Jim Beam under your belt simply turned it into a circus.

I got what you were saying, sport, and offered a point-by-point counterargument to each one of those statements you made with which I disagreed, buttressing those arguments with concrete example, pinpointing precisely where I recognized overt fallacies (the ad hominem 'she's only in it for the money' statement, for example) as well as the more implicit McCarthy=Buchanan=Coulter insinuations. At which point, of course, your responses degenerated into dismissive, not-so-witty rejoinders and name-calling. I won't go tit-for-tat on the 'dimbulb' remark. I've been called worse, believe me, but insults only hit home if somewhere in the ballpark. You're too wide by a mile.

May 4, 2006 : Breitweiser went so far as to imply that former CIA Director George Tenet and two named FBI agents merited the death penalty as much as Moussaoui for their failure to take actions that could have averted 9/11. See report here.

This morning, after a fleeting acknowledgement that "the jury did an appropriate job", Breitweiser immediately trained her sights on her real enemy - the Bush administration. "I think no one seems to be acknowledging the reality here. The reality is our Justice Department prosecuted the wrong person." She went on to name three terrorists in US custoday, and alleged "because of our interrogation techniques of those individuals we are unable to prosecute them."

She also complained that "the 9/11 families have yet to hold one person accountable for these attacks. Three thousand people were killed. We have not prosecuted anyone successfully. Zacarias Moussaoui plead guilty, he plead guilty to charges that were not very directly related to 9/11, and to me that's sad." She granted that Moussaoui was "a terrible person" but claimed there were no legal grounds to execute him. Peterson respectfully disagreed, pointing out that Moussaoui attended flight school but was unconcerned with learning to take off or land and testified that given the chance he would have slit the throats of passengers and crew.

In any case, while Breitweiser deserves understanding and sympathy for her loss, in many ways she has become emblematic of the blame-America-first attitude of many in the MSM and the American left. ~ Today Show/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

Breitweiser Bitter, But Pro-Death Penalty 9/11 Family Member "Proud to Be an American"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1626541/posts

Biden Nods as Breitweiser Claims Tenet, FBI Agents Merit Death as Much as Moussaoui
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1626233/posts

Don't see how Ann Coulter hurts the cause when she says things that most conservatives have been thinking for years. What she said about the Jersey gals should have been said a couple years ago. It was past due. They represent less than half a percent of the 9/11 victims families, yet the media props them up as though they represent the body of thought among the victims families an that just isn't true. The liberals shouldn't be putting "victims" forward to always push their agenda and then get irate when we rebutt them. If you're a victim, don't insert yourself in a heated debate about important issues if you can't handle being strongly challenged. That's rule one in the living in the real adult world.

Oh and as for who had heard about the Jersey "gals", I believe most all active conservative has known who they are for the past three years. They tried all they could to hijack the 9-11 hearings to turn it into an anti-Bush witch hunt. Every network and the liberal press and cable channels would put them on at least once a week as the mouthpiece for the libeal democrat anti-war talking points, as though they represented all victims families, with the media never giving a voice to those who didin't agreewith the Jersey gals, figuring they were above reproach as "victims". Well that little games has gotten old.

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