Another Ann Coulter Controversy

Recapped. Her key quote:

“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 husband’s death so much.�

I think that was a quote read to her on the Today show, not a quote she made spontaneously on the show itself.

What exactly is she advancing with such nastiness? Is she actually advancing the conservative cause, or only her own?

I agree with Rick Moran here:

She has descended into a black hole of necessity from which there is no escape; where she is forced to please her rabid base of red meat conservatives usually by going beyond the bounds of decency and proper public discourse in order to make a point that could have been made without resorting to the kind of hurtful, hateful, personal attacks that have become a hallmark of her war with liberals.

[…]

The anti-Bush 9/11 widows are not immune from criticism for their political positions nor even for the tactics they use to advance those positions. But to say that they are “enjoying� their status as widows is so far beyond the pale that anyone who makes such a statement deserves the most severe censure possible.

Thats about says it. There's funny Ann, there's snide Ann, there's take-no-prisoners Ann. Sometimes there's Insightful Ann or Scholarly Ann. And then, on occasion, there is either Insane Ann or Let Me Create Controversy Just To Peddle Books Ann.

Allah has stuff on this too, including Moran's sum-up of Coulter, which I think is a bit over the top:

a shallow, bitter, bitch of a woman whose hate filled mouthings will eventually lead to her destruction

The sad thing is I'm not sure I disagree strenuously with any of that. I just would prefer it not be said.

Captain Ed makes the necessary comparison between Coulter yesterday and Ted Rall three years ago, making the same basic attack in his cartoon "Terror Widows," back when it was assumed that all "Terror Widows" would be war-supporters. If it was wrong for Ted Rall to make that attack against Terror Widows who were inconvenient emotional supports for a position he was against, isn't it also wrong for Coulter to do the same?

There's actually no question that Coulter has, as Rall had then, the basics of a point. There's no problem with noting that these women -- on both sides of the debate -- have not been certified as foreign policy or military or intelligence experts simply due to tragedy, nor are they entitled to get everything they might want in life. Don't get me started on many of the widows believing they have a right to have Ground Zero remain an undeveloped bit of park-space and cenotaph of trees in the heart of Manhattan's financial district.

But this nastiness is uncalled for. Even if something is actually felt deep inside -- even if you're filled with toxic hatred for very annoying, very presumptuous, very left-leaning women with an overweening sense of entitlement -- most people would find less abrasive ways to express such an emotion.

Does that mean that Ann is just more honest than us "nancy boys"?

Not really. A lot of the time the excuse of "I was just being honest" is just a code for "I'm basically an inconsiderate asshole who cannot be bothered to modify my behavior in even the slightest fashion in order to observe basic conventions of social decency."

posted by Ace at 03:27 PM

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