From Matt Lauer’s interview with Ann Coulter on the Today show, via Crooks and Liars:
LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration:
These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing bush was part of the closure process.
And this part is the part I really need to talk to you about:
These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.
Because they dare to speak out?
COULTER: To speak out using the fact they are widows. This is the left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to> No-No-No. We always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die—
LAUER: But aren’t they in the middle of the story?...
COULTER: ...Because then if we respond, oh you are questioning their authenticity. No, the story is…
LAUER: So grieve but grieve quietly?
DISGUSTING.
I would infer from your reaction to Ann Coulter’s descriptive hyperbole, and/or Lauer putting words in her mouth, that you would argue Cindy Sheehan’s grief transfigures her from an ignorant, middle-age, white liberal from Marin County into an authoritative voice on geo-politics, morality, and national defense.
I find using a dead son’s coffin as a soapbox disgusting, not transforming. Coulter’s rant about a small, radical group of 9-11 widows is provoking, but hardly unjust considering their advertisements against Bush in 2004 and their partisan interference in the 9-11 hearings. And your comparison of Coulter to the truly vile Moore is both unfair and beneath your usual standards.
David,
I don’t have any use for Cindy Sheehan, either. In fact, I don’t have any use for anyone who’s vile and disgusting—regardless of their politics.
sorry, but I don’t understand who you think is “disgusting.” From the title I take it you object to Coulter’s comments. I agree that they are pretty crass, but she does have a point. They are leveraging their victim status for political purposes. While Coulter’s comments were crude, I fail to see how that makes her Michael Moore.
They are both wholesale suppliers of red meat to their respective true-believers. Their highly inflated egos are dependent on the adoration of their fans. They over-generalize, distort, and twist the truth to get their fix of fame. They are both propagandists.
What did she distort? Have they not cast themselves as policy experts with special insight into how this nation should be defended from terrorists based on their sad experience? Are they not also trying to “get their fix of fame?”
Personally, I don’t think I could ever read one of Ann’s books because her hyperbole is humorous only in small doses, but telling the truth with an excess of energy does not make it untrue.
I have only been outraged twice in recent memory. the first was when karl rove said that liberals looked that savagery of 9-11 and offered therapy or whtever. the second was this. Seriously, I don’t get offended easily, but this is not acceptable.
and also not exactly current. the last time we heard from these women was during the 9/11 commision and one of them appeared in an ad for John Kerry, largely based on what she felt was Bush’s lack of implementation of the 9/11 commision’s suggestions. That was 2 years ago.
I don’t think I can legally say what i want to say about this “person” so I won’t
also, why is michael moore STILL a boogeyman for the right? his movie came out two years ago and he hasn’t made another one since. and the theme of the movie against the iraq war is entirely mainstream by now. nostalgia for when bush was above 40% approval maybe?
lester,
I for one am pulling for the Marine.