Good Grief: Ann Coulter & The Doctrine of Liberal Infallibility
By Aaron Goldstein (06/11/06)
Ann Coulter had the makings of a good point. However, instead of making a good point, Coulter chose to ascend the heights of idiocy.
In her latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism Coulter takes to task a group of 9/11 widows known as “The Jersey Girls” who played a role in the establishment of the 9/11 Commission. Before I focus my attention on Coulter let’s examine the statements of their most prominent member, Kristen Breitweiser.
Since May 2005, Breitweiser has been an occasional contributor at The Huffington Post. Breitweiser has made what I would describe as some rather odd statements and points subject to debate and discussion.
In January 2006, Breitweiser criticized the NSA’s surveillance program (www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/know-thine-enemya-prime_b_14186.ht..). On the one hand she criticized the Bush Administration for conducting “illegal surveillance” and on the other criticized the Bush Administration for not kicking out al Qaeda sleeper cells out as a result of the surveillance:
Now we find the Bush Administration carrying out illegal surveillance on U.S. citizens who are allegedly receiving phone calls from al Qaeda. We are told that these individuals are so dangerous and so in the midst of plotting attacks against us, there is simply no time to adhere to the law and secure judicial approval (even 72 hours after the fact) for their surveillance.
One would assume that the targets of the NSA program would be defined by the Bush Administration as “al Qaeda sleeper cells living inside the United States.” One would also assume, then, that the Bush Administration’s justification for ignoring U.S. constitutional law, if it is valid, would mean that these individuals are currently in the process of planning, preparing, or committing terrorist attacks against this country in the near future.
So, why is President Bush letting these sleeper cells stay here? Why is President Bush giving them any opportunity to carry out their plans of attack? Doesn’t he understand how dire the situation is? Surely, he must…So why are they still here?
I want to know why President Bush does not attach “enemy combatant status” to such individuals and kick them the heck out of our country NOW…before they can perpetrate another 9/11. End of story.
But then Breitweiser goes on the state that she does not condone the use of “enemy combatant status” to al Qaeda sleeper cells. She opposed the use of enemy combatant status before she supported it. I can see why she endorsed John Kerry. Breitweiser then argues that by using “enemy combatant status” it would end the need for what she deems to be illegal surveillance. Of course, how exactly the NSA would gather such intelligence without conducting surveillance she does not elaborate.
After Coulter’s statements on the Today Show (which I will get to shortly), Breitweiser and the Jersey Girls came out with a statement which included a list of eight areas “in need of attention and public outcry.” One of those areas was border security. The Jersey Girls state, “We continue to have porous borders and INS and Customs systems in shambles. We need a concerted effort to integrate our border security into the larger national security apparatus.”
Yet in April 2006, Breitweiser wrote another article for The Huffington Post praising the demonstrations of illegal immigrants (www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/taking-it-to-the-streets_b_18843.html):
What I find ironic is that these men, women, and children are not even American citizens, and yet they have galvanized, mobilized, and organized their sentiments to create quite a movement. Even more impressive is that these protesters are here illegally and risk the real threat of being herded up, detained, and deported while participating in such mass protests. And yet, they are out there in the streets having their voices heard. Without taking a stand on the immigration issue in this blog, I will say that I admire their incredible unity and courage.
O.K., let me see if I get this straight. Breitweiser affixes her signature to a document that laments our porous borders and yet she does want to take a stand on the immigration issue. Again, I can see why she endorsed Kerry. She wants al Qaeda sleeper cells deported immediately praises illegal immigrant protesters as courageous because of the risks their taking. The risk their taking is that they are breaking the law. Something she lambastes President Bush for allegedly doing.
Besides if al Qaeda sleeper cells were immediately deported, the Jersey Girls, Not in Our Name and the ACLU would state that the U.S. government was violating their civil liberties faster than you can say truth to power.
In another post written in April 2006, Breitweiser criticizes former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani for giving a victim impact statement at the Zacarias Moussaoui trial (www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/giulianis-deadly-impact_b_18564.html):
Can someone please tell me why Rudy Giuliani gets to give a victim’s impact statement at the Moussaoui penalty phase hearing? Which family member did Giuliani lose in the attacks?
Forgive me, but Giuliani is the person responsible for deciding to locate NYC’s emergency command center in the World Trade Center along with a diesel fuel tank (against the advice of certain FDNY officials) before 9/11. Locating the city’s emergency command center in a known al Qaeda target (the towers were struck in 1993 and al Qaeda publicly promised to return to finish the job) was a colossal failure in judgment on his part that cost hundreds of lives on 9/11.
Anyone who wants to witness the results of NYC’s abysmal emergency response to the attacks need only listen to the recently released 911 tapes that chillingly reveal a total lack of coordination and flow of vital life-saving information plaguing the city and its emergency response apparatus that day.
Furthermore, Giuliani is also responsible for giving FDNY inoperable Motorola radios. This, too, cost hundreds of lives when firemen did not hear the order to evacuate the towers prior to their collapse.
How is a man who is responsible for such horrific and deadly judgments invited to give a victim’s impact statement as to how 9/11 impacted him?
Where do I begin? Breitweiser fails to remember that Giuliani very nearly lost his own life while temporarily trapped in a building near the World Trade Center along with other city officials. Breitweiser fails to remember that Giuliani attended hundreds of funerals of 9/11 victims and gave comfort to their families. Does Breitweiser think this did not have an impact on Giuliani? Does Breitweiser think Giuliani intentionally provided the FDNY with radios that did not work? Does Breitweiser think Giuliani was responsible for the terrorist attack. The hijackers who navigated two airplanes into the World Trade Center not Rudy Giuliani are not responsible for “horrific and deadly judgments.”
Kristen Breitweiser has made plenty of statements that need to be challenged and criticized. Coulter could have drawn attention to Breitweiser’s statements about the NSA surveillance program, about border security and about Giuliani. Instead, Coulter chooses an ad hominem approach. She writes:
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.
Coulter also queried, “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.”
As we all know Coulter was taken to task on the Today Show by Matt Lauer who questioned her about her claim that the Jersey Girls enjoying their husband’s deaths. After some persistent questioning by Lauer, Coulter interjected, “Look you are getting testy with me.”
In late 2004, I wrote an article about Coulter titled “How To Talk To Ann Coulter (If You Must)” after she gave a talk at Boston College (www.americandaily.com/article/5806). I argued that it is useless to get angry at her because she feeds off anger. Coulter has a sense of humor. A very, very black sense of humor but a sense of humor nonetheless. I suggested that liberals approach her with humor and with an element of surprise. However, in light of her comments about the Jersey Girls I am not sure if that is such a wise prescription. It might be best to offer her a piece of pumpkin pie and to simply move on. Perhaps Coulter’s next book will criticize Elie Wiesel for writing about his experiences at Auschwitz.
Coulter is not concerned about ideas and challenging them but rather with image and with selling books. Nothing against selling books and making money but it is a triumph of style over substance. So instead of focusing our attention on Breitweiser’s public statements we shake our heads at Coulter and feel sorry for Breitweiser.
It is a shame because Coulter could have made a good argument. The argument Coulter was attempting to make was one of what she described as “liberal infallibility”. While appearing on The Today Show Coulter said, “That is the point of liberal infallibility. Of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows, of putting out Joe Wilson...You can’t respond. It’s their doctrine of infallibility.”
There is a kernel of truth here. In other words there are certain people who are simply above criticism and the Left presents them in an attempt to stifle rather than stimulate discussion. Cindy Sheehan might be the best example of the doctrine of liberal infallibility. Last August, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd took President Bush to task for not visiting with Sheehan and wrote “the moral authority of parents who bury children in Iraq is absolute.” (www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/10dowd.html?ei+5088&en=3bcb17b639694).
Of course, Dowd did some sanitation. Christopher Hitchens pointed out a few things that Dowd omitted for her column. Amongst them was Sheehan stating her son “was killed for lies and for a PNAC (Project for the New American Century) Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel.” Furthermore, Hitchens challenged Sheehan’s so-called “moral authority” (www.slate.com/id/2124500/):
I dare say that her “moral authority” to do this is indeed absolute, if we agree for a moment on the weird idea that moral authority is required to adopt overtly political positions, but then so is my “moral” right to say that she is spouting sinister piffle. Suppose I had lost a child in this war. Would any of my critics say that this gave me any extra authority? I certainly would not ask or expect them to do so. Why, then, should anyone grant them such a privilege?
Christopher Hitchens was pretty tough on Cindy Sheehan. But Hitchens did not question the sincerity of Sheehan’s grief. If anything, Hitchens was far tougher on Dowd than Sheehan stating that he distrusted “the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them.” Never did Hitchens claim that Sheehan enjoyed the death of her son.
Needless to say had Cindy Sheehan not been opposed to the War in Iraq and not been vociferously opposed to President Bush, Maureen Dowd would never have given her the time of day. Just ask the mothers who have lost their sons and daughters in Iraq and still believe their mission is a noble enterprise.
Days after Coulter’s appearance on The Today Show, U.S. and Iraqi military forces killed al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. It is widely believed that al Zarqawi personally beheaded Iraqi and Western hostages including American Nick Berg in 2004. Consider Berg’s father, Michael, who blames President Bush, not al Zarqawi for his son’s death and lamented al Zarqawi’s death. When asked by CNN about his reaction to al Zarqawi’s death, Berg replied, “Well, my reaction is I’m sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being.” Berg also stated, “I’m not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he’s no worse than George Bush.”
The elder Berg told Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends program, “I don’t think that Zarqawi is himself responsible for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq. I think George Bush is. George Bush is the one that invaded this country, George Bush is the one that destabilized it so that Zarqawi could get in, so that Zarqawi had a need to get in, to defend his region of the country from American invaders.”
During the CNN interview, Berg even went as far as to justify suicide bombing:
Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?
Let’s keep in mind that Michael Berg is a candidate for the United States Congress in Delaware for the Green Party ticket. Anyone who runs for public office is subject to criticism especially on their public pronouncements and should be expecting it. Why would the good people of Delaware want to elect a man who empathizes with suicide bombers who want to kill Americans civilians and soldiers?
Now, I have just criticized Michael Berg, a man who lost his son in the most horrific way imaginable. I have just implored the people of Delaware not to cast a ballot for him. I believe that Michael Berg is severely misguided. Anyone who likens President Bush to Saddam Hussein or Abu Musab al Zarqawi or justifies suicide bombing is just plain loopy. Michael Berg has been staunchly anti-American since the early days of the Vietnam War. He was loopy long before his son was killed in Iraq and will likely be loopy until the day he dies.
But not for one minute do I believe that Michael Berg is enjoying the death of his son. I do not believe that Michael Berg derives any pleasure from this fact. And even if I did believe that Michael Berg is enjoying the death of his son I would not say so. Why? Because it serves absolutely no purpose. If I were to say such things about Michael Berg most people would end up feeling sorry for him instead of focusing their attention on his public comments. In the grand scheme of things it is more important to me that people discuss what Michael Berg said or what Kristen Breitweiser said or what Cindy Sheehan said rather than what I might think is running through their minds.
There are certainly those on the Left who would prefer whatever was said by Cindy Sheehan, Kristen Breitweiser or Michael Berg to be accepted at face value. If you do not accept what they say at face value then you are a heartless bastard. That’s not the way it works in a democratic society. No is either above or beneath criticism. Just because Kristen Breitweiser’s husband was killed on 9/11 does not exempt her from criticism. Just because Cindy Sheehan’s son was killed in combat in Iraq does not mean that her public statements cannot be challenged. Just because Michael Berg’s son was beheaded by al Qaeda terrorists does not mean voters cannot be critical of his public policy positions. The American people are free to challenge their ideas and opinions.
But by suggesting that Kristen Breitweiser and the other “Jersey Girls” are enjoying the death of their husbands, Ann Coulter chooses not to challenge their ideas or opinions but rather to rub salt in their wounds. She ought to be careful for what she wishes. This means that Ann Coulter is not above criticism. She, too, is not infallible. Coulter is engaging in defamation masquerading as satire. Instead of partaking in salient public discourse she has become a purveyor of infantile buffoonery. I have no desire to prevent anyone from purchasing Coulter’s book yet I believe your money is better spent elsewhere. But I am sure that she is proud of her work. Now that Coulter has conquered the summit of imbecility she might not want to stay around for too long because its foundation is weak and wobbly. She might also not want to look down because it might be a slow but long fall to the bottom.
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