Ann Coulter is getting criticism for making the following four comments, which, when discussed in most articles (like the attached) never explain the context in which she made these comments.
1. "The 911 widows are enjoying their widowhood." Well, if they don't want to receive partisan criticism, they shouldn't use their widowhood to make political points.
2. "John Edwards is a fag." Well, if he doesn't want to get called a fag, he should stop posing as a folksy populist while getting busted for paying $1,000 for a haircut, which is what inspired Coulter's comment here."
3. "I wish John Edwards would get killed by terrorists." She made this comment because Bill Mahr received zero outcry when he stated the same about Dick Cheney, whereas Coulter received a great outcry for calling Edwards a fag. So rhetorically she said, instead of calling him a fag I'll just wish the terrorists would kill him.
4. "John Edwards has a bumper sticker that reads, 'ask me about my dead son.'" This comment was inspired by the revelation of the Kerry-Edwards campaign manager that Edwards goes around using a canned story about his son's death in order to ingratiate himself to people both privately, and in $100,000 speeches given to poverty groups. Her full comment, rarely quoted when condemning the shocking part: "If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those 'Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident' bumper stickers?"
If you simply read the attached article you would think that Coulter was insane, simply blurting out ugly comments about Edwards and one group of wealthy 911 widows. But of course that is not the case. This reminds me of the phony bluster of Joe Wilson reacted with shock and indignation when his wife Valarie Plame's name got dragged into the debate over his trip to Niger; well, if you didn't want her name in the debate, then why in the hell did you start the debate, using a job that she got for you?
3 comments:
Coulter's comments are mean-spirited and stupid. This is her MO. She only gets headlines because of her shock-jock rants. If we all ignored her, she would reveal herself to be the irrelevant hack that she is.
I will, however, take issue with Paul's comment about Wilson and Plame: "...well, if you didn't want her name in the debate, then why in the hell did you start the debate, using a job that she got for you?"
Wilson, an Africa expert, was sent by Dick Cheney, the vice-president of the United States, to find out if there was any truth to the rumors that Iraq had bought uranium from Niger. He was recommended by the CIA operative and intelligence expert who was in charge of determining whether there was any truth to the claims that Iraq had WMDs.
The fact that Valerie Plame is Joe Wilson's wife was irrelevant to his getting the job. He was an expert, and he was fully qualified for the position. The cries of nepotism by bitter neoconservative warmongers like Paul attempt to obscure this fact.
Wilson WAS qualified to make that determination, and he found that the claims were false. When the government lied and said the claims were true, he called them on it.
Wilson's marital status only became relevant when the vice-president and his henchmen broke a federal law by revealing Plame's identity. That marital status is only relevant because it was the basis for these political attacks, and said attacks are only used to obscure the fact that the president and vice-president committed fraud when they took us to war.
Your emperor is naked as a jaybird, Mr. Philpott.
Wilson was no "African expert", Plame's official on-stationary recommendation was the only way that any other CIA officers knew to consider him, his visit lasted less than a week, entailed no more than asking old friends from his days as an ambassador if the allegations were true, and fell far short of falsifying the conclusion of British intel (which maintains its conclusion, by the way); Wilson's visit and oral report did not "prove" that Niger and Iraqi officials had worked on a yellow cake shipment.
Furthermore, Dick Cheney didn't send Wilson. Cheney asked for more info, the Wilson trip represented only one multiple-layers-removed aspect of that request. Cheney did not know of Wilson until Wilson published that famous NYT missive which misrepresented the nature of Wilson's trip and exaggerated Wilson's importance and expertise. Wilson's oral, undocumented report did not constitute the final executive branch conclusion about the Niger-Iraqi yellow cake allegation.
Nadir: Please explain the difference between Bill Marh's comment about hoping that terrorists kill Cheny with Coulter's responding wish that terrorists kill Edwards.
Post a Comment