Hillary lashes out at Ann Coulter By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 7, 2:09 PM ET New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton lashed out at Ann Coulter for a "vicious, mean-spirited attack" on a group of outspoken 9/11 widows, whom the right-wing television pundit described as "self-obsessed" and enjoying their husbands' deaths. Coulter writes in a new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act "as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them." She also wrote, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." Clinton, who has felt Coulter's wrath over the years, responded angrily on Wednesday. "Perhaps her book should have been called 'Heartless,'" the senator said. "I know a lot of the widows and family members who lost loved ones on 9/11. They never wanted to be a member of a group that is defined by the tragedy of what happened." The New York Democrat and former first lady said she found it "unimaginable that anyone in the public eye could launch a vicious, mean-spirited attack on people whom I've known over the last four and a half years to be concerned deeply about the safety and security of our country." The senator spoke after delivering a speech on protecting children from exposure to sex- and violence-saturated media. Coulter appeared Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show, and reiterated her stance, saying the women used their grief "to make a political point." Her criticism was aimed at four New Jersey women whom she dubbed "The Witches of East Brunswick," after the town where two of them live. They have spent the years since the 2001 terror attacks supporting an independent commission to examine government failures before the attack, and in the 2004 presidential campaign they endorsed Democrat John Kerry. The women are Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza of New Jersey. The women, who are still pushing for changes in how the government guards against future attacks, issued a joint statement after Coulter's television appearance. "We have been slandered. Contrary to Ms. Coulters statements, 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. We adored these men and miss them every day," the women said.
Massive chip on her Coulter Ann's vicious screed BY ADAM LISBERG DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER One of the controversial excerpts from Ann Coulter's new book 'Godless': 'These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.' When their husbands were killed on 9/11, four New Jersey widows tried to find out why - and now no-holds-barred conservative pundit Ann Coulter is mercilessly denouncing them as "witches." "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," Coulter writes in her new book. Her brutal words were challenged yesterday on national television by "Today" host Matt Lauer - and she was slammed by the widows she derided as self-absorbed, limelight-seeking "harpies." "I'd like her to meet my daughter and tell her how anyone could enjoy their father's death," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four widows known as the "Jersey Girls." "She sounds like a very disturbed, unraveled person," added Breitweiser. In "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," the uncompromisingly right-wing Coulter writes the Jersey Girls have no right to criticize President Bush or any of the failures that led to the terror attacks. "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis," Coulter writes. "And 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. . . "These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them." Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza bonded after their husbands died on 9/11, leaving them with seven children and a desire for answers. They pushed to create the 9/11 commission, which put out a scathing report criticizing the Clinton and Bush administrations for not taking the terrorist threat more seriously - and found New York's emergency response system wasn't prepared for a serious attack. "Our ports have not been secured. Our borders have not been secured. We still haven't caught [Osama] Bin Laden," Van Auken said yesterday. "She's not even talking about what we were talking about. She's just attacking." The Jersey Girls - or, as Coulter calls them, "the Witches of East Brunswick" - have been criticized before, but never like this. Van Auken told the Daily News she was stunned by the vitriol. "Having my husband burn alive in a building brought me no joy," she said. "Watching it unfold on national TV and .seeing it repeated endlessly was beyond what I could describe. Telling my children they would never see their father again was not fun. And we had no plans to divorce." When Lauer grilled Coulter about the book, she yelled at him so harshly that gasps echoed through Rockefeller Center - and then she made a wisecrack about CBS-bound former host Katie Couric. "If you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?" Lauer asked. As the exchange grew tense, Coulter said, "Look, you're getting testy with me." She later added: "Hey, where's Katie? Did she leave or something?" Last night, Coulter didn't back down from bashing the 9/11 widows. "These women got paid. They ought to take their money and shut up about it," Coulter said on MSNBC's "The Situation with Tucker Carlson." Coulter made headlines in the past when she called for blowing up The New York Times Building, advocated forcing Muslims to become Christians and wrote an entire book that said every American liberal is guilty of treason. Her controversial writings have made her a best-selling .author and syndicated columnist and put her on the cover of Time magazine. She's made big bucks in the process, buying a $1.5 million condo on the upper East Side. Politicians of both parties denounced Coulter's comments. "It's totally inhumane to be saying things like this about people who went through such agony," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.). "It seems that she's just full of anger and hate," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), who held a news conference yesterday with relatives of 9/11 victims on the country's failure to improve security. "Like an insecure child, it's always been clear that Ann Coulter is prepared to do anything to get attention," added Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens). "This is a new low."
Haven't We All Had Enough of Ann Coulter? Reported by Marie Therese - June 07, 2006 Last night on their show Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes gave the Mistress of Mean, Ann Coulter, not one but two segments to discuss her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Earlier in the day as I was driving and listening to Ed Schultz on Air America, he explained to his listeners that event though he'd been offered a chance to interview Coulter, he'd turned it down. Why? Because, basically, she's got nothing new to say. After last night, I agree with him. In the new book Coulter shocked many when she made inflammatory and callous statements about the 9-11 widows who oppose George Bush and the war on Iraq: " 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. "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 husbandâs death so much." [from Godless] After announcing that Coulter deliberately chose the Day of the Antichrist - 06-06-06 - to launch her book, Hannity immediately did a belly-flop into a pool of supposition and blamed "liberals" for the murder of Clemson student Tiffany Souers, whose mother they had just interviewed. He conflated the Souers case with Coulter's chapter about Willie Horton. Horton was a murderer released on a weekend furlough under a program approved by Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Horton then used his furlough to assault a man and rape his fiancee. When Dukakis ran against George H. W. Bush in 1988, the Bush campaign, which was being largely directed by his campaign manager, Lee Atwater, working closely with the candidate's youngest son, George W. Bush, seized on this and plastered the airwaves with a now-infamous ad in which they painted Dukakis as too soft on crime. Using the Horton case, Coulter has claimed in her book that there is a "general compulsion" among liberals to "free criminals." COULTER: "I can assure you it wasn't a conservative legislature or a conservative judge who was releasing these guys." Alan Colmes asked her about her "Christianity". COLMES: "You say your Christianity fuels everything you do, and everything you write and that you're called upon to battle cruelty ... Would Jesus sanction a book that belittles and ridicules a large segment of the American population?" COULTER: "Yes." As justification, Coulter compared liberals to the moneychangers thatn Jesus swept out of the temple with a whip. She then went on to say that "liberals always think of Christ as some kind of panty-waist." When pressed by Colmes to identify which liberals feel that way, she suddenly got very cagey and defensive, saying "This naming names things you're not gettin' me into." Colmes kept pressing her for specific names but she dodged the question repeatedly. COULTER: "This naming names idea of who's a liberal and who's godless, I mean, that is a way of preventing me - or anyone - from talking about liberalism." It became obvious that Lawyer Coulter was dodging the questions because she knew she was on thin ice and could be sued the minute she actually mentioned a real live person on air. (In fact, it would not surprise this News Hound in the least if she is being sued by the 9-11 widows she slandered in her book!) During the second segment, Colmes went after Coulter on the issue of whether or not she committed voter fraud in Florida as alleged by Election Supervisor Arthur Anderson. Coulter's reponse? "I think the syphilis has gone to their brains." When pressed by Colmes, she refused to answer direct questions, hiding behind claims that this would let her "stalkers" know her address. She did, however, say, directly, "I live in New York" and then denied receiving a registered letter from Mr. Anderson's office. "This is all false, I'm telling you'," she said, clearly angry. "Ya' gotta stop. The Treason Times may hate America but they're at least accurate. When you go to the bush league newspapers, you get all the venom of the New York Times, but they're all retarded." (I wondered at the time if Coulter realized that her use of the words "bush league" might not go over so well with FOX viewers?) Colmes then questioned her about her appalling statements regarding the 9-11 widows. Coulter again stepped in it big-time, claiming that the Republican widows of 9-11 were not Republican until they'd experienced a "conversion." Quite literally, as you read the exchange below, I believe you will see that Coulter may be losing it. COLMES: "You've actually attacked women - bereaved women - and you've called them 'sobbing, hysterical women'...." COULTER: "I don't attack them for being widows. I attack - I simply do not believe that having their husband die entitles your left-wing views to sanctification..." COLMES: "They're not all left-wing." COULTER (overtalking him): "... and I think this is the most vulgar thing ..." COLMES: "In fact, many of them were Republicans and voted for Bush." COULTER: "Yes, until then." COLMES: "Yes, That's right." COULTER (disparaging tone): "Yes. We always hear about the Damascus Road conversion. I'm sure they were. Not - no. This is, I think, a serious point. The liberal - and it's a chapter in my book on liberal infallibility - and I think it is one of the most vulgar things liberals have done to discourse in America and that is this personal ... COLMES: "These women were not liberals. These women who spoke out." COULTER: "Wait, just let me finish this. This personal authenticity to have a position on something. What can I not talk to you about, you know, discrimination against Jews?" CROSSTALK:
Continued: COLMES: "No one's stopping you." COULTER: "Can you not talk to me about women in America?" (she quickly glanced at Hannity, who remained silent through most of the entire interview) COLMES: "No one's stopping you. Look at the broad platform we have." COULTER: "Do I have to kill my mother, so I can be a victim, too?" COLMES (trying to get her to hear him): "But, Ann, these women are not liberal ..." COULTER: "They're always putting forward ..." COLMES: "... these women who spoke out." COULTER: "No. They say they need to be listened to and we can't respond, because they're victims." COLMES: "Would you call grieving, sobbing ..." COULTER: "Nobody likes being lectured by a victim." COLMES: "Do you think calling them 'sobbing, hysterical women' when these women had their husbands blown up by terrorists shows due respect to these grieving widows?" COULTER: "You're leaving out the entire point of why they are even in the news and we're being - and we're talking about them. They injected themselves into the public debate. They're giving - um - um - um - interviews, you know ..." COLMES: "Yeah." COULTER: "... and press conferences on public policy ..." COLMES: "They get to speak out, too." COULTER: " ... on the response to 9-11." During the first segment Hannity and Colmes followed their usual precise division of time, each speaking with Coulter for 2 minutes. However, during the second interview, they abandoned this ironclad division of labor. Coulter was quizzed for 3 minutes by Colmes and only during the last minute by Hannity, who tried to bring the ranting woman back to the conservative talking points. Realizing that, in the eyes of the FOX viewers, Coulter had repeatedly slandered all of the 9-11, Hannity tried to do damage control, saying "I guess now we're going to accuse the President of using widows for - is that what I'm hearin'?" Of course, Hannity's sentence, being incomplete, actually had no meaning per se. But it served to imply to the less astute of the FOX viewers that somehow liberals were accusing the President of something nefarious. Never mind that neither Colmes nor Coulter had mentioned the President at all in this second segment! Calling the book "provocative", Hannity questioned Coulter about her chapter entitled "Holiest Sacrament: Abortion". Coulter responded, "I think we may be at the point where the abortion ladies are finally gonna be thrown off the boat, but they are the last ones the Democratic Party are going to throw out." She continued, saying "I mean it is striking that Bill Clinton, the last Democrat the Democrats have been able to trick the American people into putting in the White House, sold out basically every Democratic special interest group but one. He vetoed the partial birth abortion ban twice." Coulter then explained what she meant by the title of the book - Godless: The Church of Liberalism. COULTER: "Well, it is an entire cosmology, a view of the world, beliefs in the supernatural. I do think - something I don't get to until the end of the book - that at the root of a lot of it is their obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces the sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death. Sex and death - that's how you get the improvement in the species and, allegedly, the new species, which they've never been able to produce." Hannity told Coulter that "when I mention your name to liberals, they melt. You are like Alka-Seltzer in water. They bubble, fizz, give off their energy. You are the Antichrist to them." He then asked her to explain where her philosophy came from. COULTER: " ... I'm a Christian and everything comes from being a Christian. ... I do think Christianity fuels all of my books because you are called upon to behave in a certain way as a Christian and that is to fight lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy, that fuels everything." Good Christian moneychanger that he is, Hannity ended the interview by plugging his radio show and a book-signing by Coulter. Colmes got the last word: "By the way, this is great because on 06-06-06, we're one of the only shows to bring the Antichrist to you." COMMENT Throughout the interview Alan Colmes tried his best to counter Coulter's irrational bleating with rational ideas. By doing so, he fell into the classic liberal trap. Reason doesn't work with people like Ann Coulter. This is a highly-educated woman, a lawyer, who pretends that she doesn't know the difference between religion and political philosophy. She deliberately eschews reason in favor of offensive sound bites. However, there seemed to be a curious departure from the standard Hannity & Colmes routine last night. This is based strictly on iwomans intuition. It seemed to me that Sean Hannity distanced himself from Coulter. I wondered if Little Annie Loudmouth has become box-office poison for conservatives now that she's lashed out at the powerful Republican women who lost their husbands on September 11th. Time will tell.
QUOTE]Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz: Hillary lashes out at Ann Coulter The senator spoke after delivering a speech on protecting children from exposure to sex- and violence-saturated media. LOL!!
So basically, Ann said it was wrong for these 9/11 victims to use their victim status as a political sword and accuse anyone who disagrees with them of not being sufficiently sympathetic to their loss. So the next day Hillary accuses her of........not being sufficiently sympathetic to their loss. I'd say Hillary made Ann's point for her.
I have to agree with Ann Coulter regarding the 9/11 widows. People die horrible deaths every day without getting paid off. Every time you drive by one of those roadside memorials, do you actually give a fuck? I don't expect anyone but my relatives and friends to give a fuck about me, and my sister-in-law would actually dance an Irish jig upon learning of my demise. Bury me, grieve a few days, and then get on with your lives. But memorials are a booming business. Shit, everywhere you turn there's another goddamn memorial. Why don't we just construct giant tombstones in every major metropolitan area to anticipate future disasters? We don't know what the fuck's going to happen, but let's leave some space for 83,524 names that die from the bird flu because they ate raw chicks. And then we can call them heros for paving the way for future generations to eat raw chicks... Do it for the children!
exactly. it's cheap airtime for the newsmedia - no journalism or research required, just give coulter a call and get instant controversy. and sure she deserves respect for her success - she's made an occupation of uttering mostly unsubstantiated anectdotal arguments and cruel ad hominems, and she's good at it.
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdow-Coulter-Widows.wmv (Transcript by Lynne) Olbermann: Honestly, if you were Ann Coulter's attorney at a sanity hearing where could you possibly start? Our #2 story on the Countdown, eclipsing even Bill O'Reilly and Malmedy, the Connecticut Screech has continued her assault on 9/11 widows. After calling them "witches who acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them" she has now told Reuters news that they are, quote, "professional victims." All as part of the promotion of a book in which she claims *liberals* are, quote, "godless." [Today Show interview tape] Let's return to *this* planet. To recap Coulter's argument: The wives of those who died in the worst attack in this nation's history enjoyed their husband's deaths and profited off them, they have politicized 9/11, their positions as widows immunize them from any criticism or debate over their opinions. All of this stated by a commentator much of whose income in the last four and a half years has derived from *her* speeches and writings about the deaths of those same men on 9/11. All this stated by a commentator who has staunchly, repeatedly, and enthusiastically defended an administration that began to politicize 9/11 within a month of the nightmare and has never paused for a moment since. All of this stated by a commentator who has called those who have criticized her and her party "un-American" and now, "godless." All of this stated by a commentator who is bitching that these 9/11 widows can't be criticized while she is writing a book and going on TV and venomously criticizing them. [Tucker Carlson interview tape, ending with Coulter saying, "these women got paid, they ought to take their money and shut up about it."] The way Ann Coulter always does when she's criticized. Ms. Coulter's walk on the swaying tightrope of her own emotional stability did not end there. In her book she also wrote, "And 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..." Appearing in Playboy and getting divorced -- neither of those being scenarios that Ann Coulter is ever going to have to deal with in *her* life. Five of the most politically active 9/11 widows, including Kristen Breitweiser and Lorie Van Auken, have responded in a written statement. [Statement shown] And lastly, back to my allusion about having to defend Ann Coulter in a sanity hearing, that was inappropriate -- because it was insufficient. Imagine, in fact, defending her on Judgment Day -- and trying to find her soul.