what she meant to say

if you were looking for a diplomat, she wouldn’t be the first person on your list. if miss manners was out sick one day, you woudn’t ask this woman to ghostwrite her column. she is often abrasive and doesn’t really care too much about the feelings of her critics on the right and on the left. she gets paid handsomely for saying and writing outrageous things. that doesn’t mean ann coulter can’t possibly be right.

i totally disagree with the way ann coulter has framed this question of whether a victim should be immune from criticism just because of their status as victims. i certainly wouldn’t say exactly what she said about the jersey girls. i think it’s a low blow to say those kinds of things about anyone who has suffered a loss like those women have. i’ve never been in their shoes, and i can’t identify with their loss. that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the right to criticize what they say and what they do just because they lost their husbands on 9/11.

being a victim doesn’t make you immune from criticism. this means you, cindy sheehan and michael berg. we can feel sorry for their losses, but this doesn’t automatically make them experts on foreign policy. it also doesn’t give their statements and arguments any more weight than they would have otherwise.

that’s what i think coulter was trying to say, and if that’s what she meant, then i agree with her.

5 thoughts on “what she meant to say

  1. I’m taking her at face value. Not at what she might have meant to say or what her underlying intentions might have been. Coulter’s words were calculated, and she said it just the way she meant it. I am very happy to admit that I am not in agreement with Ann Coulter.

    Just out of curiosity, who is saying that these people (Jersey girls or Sheehan) can’t be criticized?

    If they were using their grief to support President Bush, I’m sure Coulter would be praising them for being a splendid model of Americanism in time of war.

  2. Fair enough. Maybe I shouldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt here. Even if Ann Coulter wasn’t trying to make the argument that I did, I still think there’s some validity to it.

    It has been mostly the anti-war left who has made the argument that we can’t criticize anyone whose family member was killed in Iraq if they speak out against the war. What I’m saying is there may be valid reasons to do that, especially in the case of Sheehan, who has taken her grief to an absurd level. Make Hugo Chavez your new best friend and someone’s bound to notice and say something about it. I’m just sayin’.

    Maybe Coulter would support these women if they supported the war in Iraq. I can’t predict what she would do in that situation.

  3. The “anti-war left” you refer to often defend these people because it seems you are attacking them for the opinion they have and not just disagreeing. Making somebody seem anti-American or unpatriotic is an attack in my opinion. And I happen to admire a guy like Michael Berg who despite having a son killed in Iraq still has the same political mindset he had in the 1960s. It may not be something you agree with but you got to admire a guy who has morally sound convictions like that.

  4. These occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing but sickly rackets with the war machine getting wealthy off of our children’s flesh and blood and off of the ruination of two countries and the deaths of many, many civilians.

  5. That’s one way to look at it. Whether you are in fact the real Cindy Sheehan or not (and I can’t prove it either way), this is an example of why many people don’t take your side seriously. Nobody enters a war with the sole intention of profiting off of destruction and killing of combatants and non-combatants. Those who say otherwise have a credibility problem in my book.

    The death of civilians is tragic. It happens in war, but I’ve yet to see convincing evidence that the United States kills civilians intentionally. I am sorry that any soldier had to lose their life in Iraq. I can’t possibly understand that loss.

    But I do disagree with most of the rhetoric on the anti-war side, like the example you just provided, and I think it’s ok to say so.

    If you are really Cindy Sheehan, please do explain your affliation with Hugo Chavez. I would love to have an explanation for that.

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