posted June 07, 2006 09:24 PM            

quote:

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I suppose I feel the same about about their supporters as you and DD feel about those that think Ann Coulter has it right. I do think she gets carried away, but not as much as I think the Media likes to cut and paste her sound bites as well as what excerpts they print. I have read her books and they are nothing like what is protrayed in the media.

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Ummm...but you don't see anyone here from the left who hangs on every word of any of the people you mentioned. That's the difference. I haven't seen Pelosi or Madonna's words here in GU. We don't even have Chomsky fans posting his every word. So I don't think there's a comparison to be found.

quote:

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I do think she gets carried away,

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Very carried away. Why would anyone read her books when she can't have a civil debate with people when she appears on shows like Hannity & Combes? Hell, I'm watching her right now, and she's ridiculous.

posted June 08, 2006 12:45 PM            

I can agree with you on the shrill part. I find the same to be true with various politicians and some speakers in general. Hell, anyone with a high voice and NY / NJ accent makes my skin crawl.

AG,

Since when did I say I hang on every word she says? I find that she makes numerous points in her books that are intellectually spelled out and backed up with facts. Nothing wrong with that- but hanging on every word is a bit juvenile.

DayDreamer,

The more you post the more I think you filter words to suit your own agenda. I do not see things in black and white and if you ever read my posts over time I do discuss how I understand other people's points and I have backed up various liberal legislation and Ideas. I have even voted for Democrats in office.

American's are realists. Maybe other countries that support the killing of our innocent people don't understand how we can take a real view against the con artists that come out of the woodwork trying to cash in on the deaths of thousands of people.

I am saying what many people think about the displays of some of the widows and how greed turns people ugly. It happens - at least we can admit it.

That still doesn't answer the question as to why a firefighter deserves more praise because of 9-11 than one that runs into a building to rescue a child. Firefighters, law enforcement and the military has my utmost respect because they have the balls to do what most of us could never even dream of - sacrifice their lives on a daily basis.

No one is upset about giving money - Hell America is the ATM for every freaking country around and WE take care of our own as much as we can. The problem stems from when the widows (which I have already explained) get greedy. So maybe you should open up your poor little mind, do a little research on the subject then get back with your narrow-minded responses.

In any case - I do have an indepth understanding of evolution and the arguments concerning God. What kind of a scientist would not have evolution training? Duh.

Maybe it's a language barrier, who knows - but most of what you say is in a context of you are right and everyone that doesn't subscribe to you is wrong. If I post something that questions Muslims, you tell me I am stupid and I believe in everything I read. If I post something in defense of a conservative principal you take the opportunity to say it is because I am a dumb American that has to defend anything conservative.

Your mantra is getting old and boring.

posted June 08, 2006 03:31 PM            

Yes, there is always more information that what we seem to get. Does Ann Coulter hate ALL of the 9-11 widows?

"At her appearance at the Book Revue in Huntington, the rail-thin blonde was unapologetic.

"No, I won't apologize. Yes, the 9/11 widows are witches and harpies," she said.

The targets of Coulter's diatribe were Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie Van Auken, who formed a group called the Jersey Girls. They pushed for the formation of the 9/11 commission to investigate U.S. government failures before the attacks, and later campaigned for Democrat John Kerry.

The women issued a joint statement, claiming they have been "slandered" by Coulter.

Invoking the memories of their husbands, the widows said they would continue to focus on "the real issues at hand: our lack of security, leadership and progress in the five years since 9/11."

They listed the recent decision by the government to cut homeland-security grants to New York, the need for tighter security at U.S. borders and at chemical plants, and controlling the spread of nuclear weapons as issues they believe "desperately need attention and public outcry." "

Let's see what we can dig up on that little consortium of widows.

The Jersey Girls:
The 9/11 Widows
Americans are beginning to tire of them.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

"I watched my husband murdered live on TV. . . . At any point in time the casualties could have been lessened, and it seems to me there wasn't even an attempt made."

--Monica Gabrielle
"Three thousand people were murdered on George Bush's watch."

-- Kristin Breitweiser

No one by now needs briefings on the identities of the commentators quoted above. The core group of widows led by the foursome known as "The Jersey Girls," credited with bringing the 9/11 Commission into being, are by now world famous. Their already established status in the media, as a small but heroically determined band of sisters speaking truth to power, reached ever greater heights last week, when National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made her appearance at a commission session--an event that would not have taken place, it was understood, without the pressure from the widows. Television interviewers everywhere scrambled to land these guests--a far cry from the time, last June, when group leader Kristin Breitweiser spoke of her disappointment in the press, complaining to one journalist, "I've been scheduled to go on 'Meet the Press' and 'Hardball' so many times, and I'm always canceled."
No one is canceling her these days. The night of Ms. Rice's appearance, the Jersey Girls appeared on "Hardball," to charge that the national security adviser had failed to do her job, that the government failed to provide a timely military response, that the president had spent time reading to schoolchildren after learning of the attack, that intelligence agencies had failed to connect the dots. Others who had lost family to the terrorists' assault commanded little to no interest from TV interviewers. Debra Burlingame--lifelong Democrat, sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, captain of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, did manage to land an interview after Ms. Rice's appearance. When she had finished airing her views critical of the accusatory tone and tactics of the Jersey Girls, her interviewer, ABC congressional reporter Linda Douglass marveled, "This is the first time I've heard this point of view."

That shouldn't have been surprising. The hearing room that day had seen a substantial group of 9/11 families, similarly irate over the Jersey Girls and their accusations--families that made their feelings evident in their burst of loud applause when Ms. Rice scored a telling zinger under questioning. But these were not the 9/11 voices TV and newspaper editors were interested in. They had chosen to tell a different story--that of four intrepid New Jersey housewives who had, as one news report had it, brought an administration "to its knees"--and that was, as far as they were concerned, the only story.

A fair number of the Americans not working in the media may, on the other hand, by now be experiencing Jersey Girls Fatigue--or taking a hard look at the pronouncements of the widows. Statements like that of Monica Gabrielle, for example (not one of the Jersey Girls, though an activist of similar persuasion), who declared that she could discern no attempt to lessen the casualties on Sept. 11. What can one make of such a description of the day that saw firefighters by the hundreds lose their lives in valiant attempts to bring people to safety from the burning floors of the World Trade Center--that saw deeds like that of Morgan Stanley's security chief, Rick Rescorla, who escorted 2,700 employees safely out of the South Tower, before he finally lost his own life?
But the best known and most quoted pronouncement of all had come in the form of a question put by the leader of the Jersey Girls. "We simply wanted to know," Ms. Breitweiser said, by way of explaining the group's position, "why our husbands were killed. Why they went to work one day and didn't come back."

The answer, seared into the nation's heart, is that, like some 3,000 others who perished that day, those husbands didn't come home because a cadre of Islamist fanatics wanted to kill as many of the hated American infidels in their tall towers and places of government as they could, and they did so. Clearly, this must be a truth also known to those widows who asked the question--though in no way one would notice.

Who, listening to them, would not be struck by the fact that all their fury and accusation is aimed not at the killers who snuffed out their husbands' and so many other lives, but at the American president, his administration, and an ever wider assortment of targets including the Air Force, the Port Authority, the City of New York? In the public pronouncements of the Jersey Girls we find, indeed, hardly a jot of accusatory rage at the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. We have, on the other hand, more than a few declarations like that of Ms. Breitweiser, announcing that "President Bush and his workers . . . were the individuals that failed my husband and the 3,000 people that day."

The venerable status accorded this group of widows comes as no surprise given our times, an age quick to confer both celebrity and authority on those who have suffered. As the experience of the Jersey Girls shows, that authority isn't necessarily limited to matters moral or spiritual. All that the widows have had to say--including wisdom mind-numbingly obvious, or obviously false and irrelevant--on the failures of this or that government agency, on derelictions of duty they charged to the president, the vice president, the national security adviser, Norad and the rest, has been received by most of the media and members of Congress with utmost wonder and admiration. They had become prosecutors and investigators, unearthing clues and connections related to 9/11, with, we're regularly informed, unrivalled dedication and skill.

The day of Ms. Rice's appearance before the Commission, a radiant Gail Sheehy, author of "Hillary's Choice," beamed gratitude as she congratulated the host of "Hardball" for bringing the women on as guests. She had been following the New Jersey moms for two years, Ms. Sheehy said, and they were always leaks ahead--of everyone. She wanted to note, too, "how the moms kept making that point that it was her [Ms. Rice's] job" to inform the president. Another indicator of their expertise.

Ms. Sheehy was hardly alone in her faith in the widows and their special skills. Their every shred of opinion about the hearings last week was actively solicited--as will be true, no doubt, this week. Asked what question she would put to Ms. Rice, if she could, one Jersey Girl answered, after some thought, that it would be, What did she know and when did she know it? The answer wasn't the first to suggest that the nation now confronted a new investigation of government malfeasance, and coverups on the order of Watergate, and that we'd been brought to this cleansing by the work of four New Jersey widows. One NBC journalist ended his summation of Ms. Rice's testimony with an urgent coda: The issue of real significance that day, he explained, would be how the families of the 9/11 victims reacted to her testimony. There would have been no doubt, in the mind of anyone listening, which families he meant.

Really? How can that be?--is the only reasonable response to that claim, which would not have been made in a saner time. How could it be that the most important issue emerging from an inquiry into undeniable intelligence failures, at a time of utmost national peril, was the way the victims' families reacted to the hearings?

Little wonder, given all this, that the 9/11 Four blossomed, under a warm media sun and the attention of legislators, into activists increasingly confident of their authority--that, with every passing month, their list of government agencies and agents guilty of dereliction of duty grew apace. So did their assurance that it had been given to them, as victims, to determine the proper standards of taste and respectfulness to be applied in everything related to Sept. 11, including, it turned out, the images of the destroyed World Trade Center in George Bush's first campaign ad, which elicited, from some of them, bitter charges of political exploitation.
Out of their loss and tragedy the widows had forged new lives as investigators of 9/11, analysts of what might have been had every agency of government done as it should. No one would begrudge them this solace.

Nor can anyone miss, by now, the darker side of this spectacle of the widows, awash in their sense of victims' entitlement, as they press ahead with ever more strident claims about the way the government failed them. Or how profoundly different all this is from the way in which citizens in other times and places reacted to national tragedy.

From August 1940 to May 1941, the Luftwaffe's nightly terror bombings killed 43,000 British men, women and children. That was only phase one. Phase two, involving the V-1 flying bombs and, later, rockets, killed an additional 6,180. The British defense, was, to the say the least, ineffectual, particularly in the early stages of the war--the antiaircraft guns were few, the fire control system inadequate, as was the radar system. Still, it would have been impossible, then as now, to imagine victims of those nightly assaults rising up to declare war on their government, charging its leaders, say, with failure to develop effective radar--the British government had, after all, had plenty of warning that war was coming. It occurred to no one, including families who had lost husbands, wives and children, to claim that tens of thousands had been murdered on Winston Churchill's watch. They understood that their war was with the enemies bombing them.

Nor, to take an example closer to our time, did the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing give rise to a campaign of accusation (notwithstanding a conspiracy theory or two) against the government for its failure to prevent the attack.

Yesterday's session of the 9/11 Commission brought an appearance by Attorney General John Ashcroft--a reminder, among other things, of various intriguing questions posed by some of Ms. Breitweiser's analyses (delivered in her testimony before the 2002 congressional committee) of the ways the Sept. 11 attack might have been foiled. If the Federal Aviation Administration had properly alerted passengers to the dangers they faced, she asked, how many victims might have thought twice before boarding an aircraft? And "how many victims would have taken notice of these Middle Eastern men while they were boarding their plane? Could these men have been stopped?"
A good question. One can only imagine how a broadcast of the warning, "Watch out for Middle Eastern men in line near you, as you board your flight," would have gone down in those quarters of the culture daily worried to death about the alleged threat to civil rights posed by profiling and similar steps designed to weed out terrorists. Consider, a veteran political aide mordantly asks, what the response would have been if John Ashcroft had issued a statement calling for such a precaution, prior to Sept. 11.

This week, as last, there will be no lack of air time for the Jersey Four, or journalists ravenous for their views. CBS's "The Early Show" yesterday brought a report from Monica Gabrielle, attesting that her husband might have escaped from the South Tower if the facts about the Aug. 6 "PDB" memo had been shared with the public. The saga of the widows can be expected to run on along entirely familiar lines. The only question of interest that remains is how Americans view the Jersey Four and company, and how long before they turn them off. http://www.opinionjournal.com/medialog/?id=110004950

"Before Sept. 11, the Jersey girls (the nickname, which distinguishes the women from their New York and Connecticut counterparts, was popularized in song by Bruce Springsteen) knew little about government and less about politics. The closest Ms. Casazza came to foreign affairs was processing visa applications for French trainees while working for the cosmetics company Lancôme. Ms. Van Auken could not keep the two chambers of Congress straight."

From Common Dreams - which uses much of their space praising the bunch.

In fact, this little group is held in very high esteem by all the extreme left media and organizations. Hmmmm...

jwhop posted:

"Thank you for posting that...about the target of Coulters wrath...(4) 9/11 widows, not all 9/11 widows.
There are some who capitalize on their grief to pitch their leftist political positions.

Apparently, those who are...grief stricken are immune from criticism...according to leftist speak. i.e., Cindy Sheehan who capitalized on the death of her son..who totally disagreed with her...to pitch their far left political agenda...and also the "Witches of East Brunswick"...who want to blame 9/11 on George Bush.

Here's some more of the story.

Coulter calls 9/11 widows "witches" By Claudia Parsons
Wed Jun 7, 6:24 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - 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. "

__________________________

Maybe this will provide a bit more of understanding concerning her point - eh DayDreamer?

posted June 08, 2006 08:26 PM              

quote:

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Elsewhere in the book, Coulter refers to the widows as "witches" and asks, "how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies"? http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002 648990

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quote:

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Yes,the 9/11 widows are witches and harpies -ann coulter

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posted June 08, 2006 08:59 PM              

I have noticed you filter your words (too?)...and have a habit of editing dumb comments you make. But I dont hold that against you...I can understand you dont want to be seen as a mean whatever.

Well I think you have clarified a bit more of the point Coulter may be trying to make...still dont think she's as intelligent as you think she is. Dont like her debating style either from things Ive read here and on some websites. Like I said before there are other people out there who dont get as much publicity who are more worthy of attention and praise for their work.

quote:

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Maybe it's a language barrier, who knows - but most of what you say is in a context of you are right and everyone that doesn't subscribe to you is wrong. If I post something that questions Muslims, you tell me I am stupid and I believe in everything I read. If I post something in defense of a conservative principal you take the opportunity to say it is because I am a dumb American that has to defend anything conservative.

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posted June 09, 2006 02:10 PM            

Don't even pretend to know what I love and what I don't love - I'll let you know my feelings on a subject and will expect you to understand that stating someone mirrors my views doesn't translate into a love and devotion for them.

posted June 09, 2006 02:18 PM            

That is called crap - a cop out to try and throw your intention onto another.

I usually edit comments when I feel that I have hurt someone's feelings, or if I see I made a blatant grammatical / spelling error. Most of the time, it doesn't quite matter to me and you are using a failed argument. Do you think you are the first person that has gone against me then tried to use that snively little tactic of saying "yes, you edit your posts to try to make yourself look better... or you have said this and that, but hey, you might just edit them so that they don't appear and I can't prove it" Blah, blah blah... I don't do that. I could care less. I have edited a few things in Soul Unions where I poured out my soul, but I feel everyone is entitled to delete signficant traumatic issues from a public forum.

I do that because too many times idiots that can't find anything else to attack me on will perform a troll search and find some heart that I have revealed on another forum and then post it with glee such as "Ha Ha, your ex Taurus was right in hurting you and lying to you" or "Yeah, you deserved such and such because you are just ugly".

So yep, I do admit I will edit posts when a vulnerability no longer needs to be public knowledge.

Are you telling me that you are one of the perfects ones that have never had to edit a post, always spelled everything correctly etc...

Yep.. Arrogance.... not projection at all, it's all inside of you and it leaks out through your posts on a regular basis.

posted June 09, 2006 08:45 PM              

Superpowers??? You think? Or you think I think that??

I havent used anything personal against you, like anything you posted about your past relationships or anything else like that, have I?

If im not the first person that's used the fact that you edit you harsh and rude comments against(?) you as a tactic, doesnt it mean something?? It's probably better that you do edit them...it shows that you dont really want to hurt the readers feelings.

Damn pid you're good! You can sniff out the truth like no other. Not only am I anti-American and pro-terrorist, Im also perfect. You got me! Not sure about the arrogant part thought.

posted February 26, 2007 09:58 PM              

(Paki-Satan, LOL...BTW that's newsmax's spelling of PAKISTAN, not mine. Paki-stan means pure land/country.)

NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The United States has given Pakistan more than $10 billion in the five years since the Sept. 11 attacks but there is little accountability for how the money is spent and it has afforded Washington little leverage over Islamabad, researchers said Monday.

A report by two experts with the Center for Strategic and International Studies has highlighted doubts about the effectiveness of the Bush administration's strategy of enlisting Pakistan as a front-line ally in trying to combat al Qaeda and resurgent Taliban militants.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Afghanistan and Pakistan Monday to urge Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to take tougher action against militants on his side of the lawless border, where U.S. commanders say radical fighters are sheltering and training.

The U.S. strategy "has forestalled disaster for five-plus years but there is no Plan B and the costs of crisis in Pakistan are too great to live without workable options." Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet wrote in an article for the spring issue of The Washington Quarterly magazine.

"...it is worth asking whether U.S. policy has reached its limits and if it is now being guided more by inertia than strategy. Washington's alliance with (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf may have run its course."

Cheney's visit came as The New York Times reported that President Bush has decided to send "an unusually tough message" to Musharraf that Congress would cut aid if he did not do more to combat extremists.

he House recently adopted a bill requiring Bush to certify Pakistan is making "all possible efforts" to prevent the Taliban from operating in areas under its control as a condition of continued U.S. military aid.

The Senate could recommend a legislative proposal as early as this week. Increasing and reorienting U.S. aid to Pakistan is under consideration, as well as a cutback.

"We're not going to get anywhere by simply saying, 'let's do exactly what we're doing for the last six years' and hope the outcome will be different," said a Senate aide said.

The CSIS report said the United States had given Pakistan more than $10 billion in military, economic and development assistance since Sept. 11 and perhaps even more in covert intelligence and military aid.

Still, "Washington finds itself with relatively little leverage to influence events in Pakistan," the report said.

Cohen and Chollet said "there is little accountability in how Pakistan spends U.S. money" and many key officials in various government agencies do not know the full extent of assistance provided.

The army is Pakistan's dominant institution and receives most of the U.S. aid, reflecting an approach heavily weighted toward short-term military cooperation with little emphasis on ensuring Pakistan's long-term stability, they said.

Even when a cease-fire along the border was in place between June and September last year, Pakistan sought and received $100 million per month in U.S. reimbursements for troop operations "raising questions about what they are being reimbursed for," said South Asia expert Alan Kronstadt of the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service.

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