In a true spirit of piety, the Bony One dressed like a whore when she rattled her way onto the Today Show to promote her latest keyboard clobberings. (Question of usage: Should I have written "as a whore"?) Here's what Ann, friend to Jesus, has to say on Today about the 9/11 widows:
"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."The obscene claim that these women enjoyed seeing their husbands burn and plummet is, I believe, actionable. Will a Democratic lawyer step forward to take on this monster?
I mean, Francine Busby will probably lose her election today due to one bit of bad wording. Meanwhile, Coulter is free to spew lies and absurdities. If you're on the far right, you may speak freely. If you're anywhere else, you must double-and-triple-think every damn syllable that exits your lips.
Apparently, Ann despises the widows because they used the tragedy to push a political stance, while the rest of us are not allowed to do so. Ah yes. We have all heard so very much from those widows. Why, just turn on your AM radio or cable news, and you will hear nothing but 9/11 widows, while Bush supporters have been censored from the dialogue entirely.
As always, the conservatives adopt the "false underdog" position. The oppressor loves to pretend to be the aggrieved party.
Did you catch "V for Vendetta" yet? It's the best film I've seen in years. One could not help thinking of Coulter during the opening scene, in which a fulminating TV hate-monger, in service to a fascist state, uses the term "Godlessness" in a supremely Coulterian fashion.
And this Harlot of Hate claims to represent the Prince of Peace...!
13 comments:
Yeah, well the Bible warns alot in Revelation about demagogues and false prophets that would look like lambs and speak like demons to mislead the many... well coulter doesn't even try to look innocently sheeplike. She's got some serious brass ones to release a book called Godless on 06/06/06. Hats off to that gutsy ho.
"Will a Democratic lawyer step forward to take on this monster?"...
Don't bet on any Democrat doing anything at all. The ruling elite are in charge and they won't give up power.
It's ONE party with 2 faces....or is it feces?
i'm with you on the libel issue: where the hell are the lawsuits??!!?
every big company on the planet has kept many a reporter and whistleblower at bay by threatening libel suits, however frivolous, because in the cost/benefit analysis, it serves them.
so why can't we do this? i know the aclu would be the obvious choice, but they go after constitutional matters, and have their hands full with that.
i still don't get why kerry has not sued the swiftboaters; god knows they boasted full out of the damages he suffered because of their attacks. john dean wrote a stellar piece laying out point by point the legal case kerry had against them. if memory serves, it had something to do with a contradiction within the book that exposed that they knew a particular fact that they later held was false and against kerry.
that may give us some clue as to criteria, namely *knowingly* claiming a falsehood about someone. ostensibly this would rule out opinions, but what if coulter actually footnotes her slander.
if she footnotes a source, and then knowingly distorts or misrepresents that source, would that be libel? one would think so.
whatever the criteria, the fact of the matter is that these demons are bullies, and the only way to stop a bully is to call their bluff and present them with grave consequences for their actions. these creeps - rush and savage and boortz and coulter and malkin and o'reilly and the lot o' them - they all do it because they can.
they'll never stop until they cease being rewarded for it AND start suffering some form of punishment for it.
this would be a great way for soros to put some of his bazillions to work for democracy!
matt lauer was uncharacteristically assertive in his questioning of coulter this morning, so then she slammed him for being 'testy' before he even really asked any truly confrontive stuff. she's worse than bush, actually; thin-skinned, egomaniacal and vindictive. and very very twisted.
I have a couple of suggestions for actions to support the 9/11 widows.
1. Read, copy, and distribute the ratings by Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie van Auken of the 9/11 Commission's (non-) responses to their questions.
http://www.justicefor911.org/Appendix4_FSCQuestionRatings_111904.php
2. Sign the Petition of Solidarity calling for the Attorney General of the State of New York and the District Attorney of the Borough of Manhattan to open new investigations into 9/11.
http://www.justicefor911.org/
Her statement, idiotic and vile as it may be, is not "libelous" in the legal sense of the word. Take it as the the usual moronic give and take of a free society -- admitting, of course, that no leftist would be allowed to spout equivalent drivel (much less the simple truth) on network TV.
Besides, if people, left or right, went to court every time someone else else uttered an insult, absurdity or out-and-out lie, we'd never be done with it, and free speech would be in sole preserve of megaphones rich enough to go to court and withstand lawsuits....
Folks exercised over A.C. ought to complain to the network -- i.e., why is this tasteless, lying provocateur, who can point to no intellectual achievements in her life, given so much air-time? And when was the last time a "left-wing" writer was last interviewed on the program?
Definition of libel: "Published material meeting three conditions: The material is defamatory either on its face or indirectly; The defamatory statement is about someone who is identifiable to one or more persons; and, The material must be distributed to someone other than the offended party; i.e. published; distinguished from slander."
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/l032.htm
I think Coulter's statement falls within that definition. If she is sued in New York, she will have to face New York jurors. Not an unpleasant thought.
it does appear that coulter's attacks meet the criteria of the definition, but that does not mean they would meet the legal criteria of the courts, which i believe also require that these things are done *knowingly* aware of the truth that they are defying.
actually, complaints against the networks don't have much affect; i started complaining about coulter the first time i ever saw her on cnn five years ago, for all the good that has done.
in my opinion, the largest reason we are forced to deal with these hate-mongers is the repeal of the fairness doctrine at the end of the reagan administration. it was a simple notion that imposed a simple rule, overseen by the fcc. the notion being the power of the airwaves requires that folks play fair; the rule being that, if you make a claim about someone or some group, you are required to notify them and offer them equal time to defend themselves on your program.
what an utterly civilized doctrine! sort of along the lines of what we all learned in kindergarten, writ down.
and notice that, since this simple, civilized doctrine was abolished at the end of the 80s, we have witnessed the unleashing of the mad dogs of hatred and lies.
coincidence? hardly. more like cause and effect.
I know...it's the old argument: If the media is so blamed liberal, then why are liberals the only ones who want the fairness doctrine back?
As for the legal definition of libel: The law is what a jury says it is. Put Ann Coulter, who cannot for three consecutive seconds hide the hatred welling up within her, in the same courtroom as some upset widows. In New York. Where Ann is loathed. Imagine.
Coulter's comment goes to an imputed state of mind -- she didn't say (for example) that these widows murdered their husbands, which would be libelous, since the claim is 1) provably untrue, and 2) she knows it to be untrue.
What she said was, these women enjoy marketing their dead husbands for personal gain. How would anyone go about disapproving such an assertion -- particularly in a court of law? Look at her books, and they're full of these slanders (n the lay sense of the word). We're talking about assertions which can't be proven or disproven, because they don't have any truth value, one way or the other. They're not matters of fact, but speculation.
Note that when she was hawking "Traitors", she refused on talk-shows to name a single such traitor. The reason is obvious: she didn't want the potential legal liability.
However, questions of law aside, you really don't want this kind of speech ending up in court. U.S. corporations already use retainer law firms to shut up people who can't afford court fees.
Restrict Coulter's right to spout trash, and other people will be dragged into court for telling the truth. Even if the suits are meritless, they're sufficient to bankrupt ordinary people.
And blogs like this one would be among the first to get hit.
anon 7:30 is right. disgusting as it is to have to swallow their bile, we must accept the right of the coulters and the nazis and the kkk to have their say, just as much as our own.
still, it sure seems we should have some parameters in place, such as were expressed in the nuremberg trials with regard to the role of julius streicher in inflaming the hatred of jews necessary in the population for the leadership to carry out.
we do have limits in place on other rights, even speech, hence libel laws.
lll is accurate and succinct on the fairness doctrine. Just one of those many changes-for-the-worse during the Reagan era. It is incomprehensible that anyone still believes RR was a "great" President.
joe, it's actually not the case that 'the law is what a jury says it is.' technically, the law is what the judge in a trial - criminal or civil - instructs the jury to address. the judge explains the legal criteria a charge has to meet. of course, the jury can be probing and creative, but they cannot be defiant.
also, i realize i didn't finish my sentence above:
"...inflaming the hatred of jews necessary in the population for the leadership to carry out..." atrocities.
sort of the key word there; apologies.
I believe that since the activist 911 widows have become "public figures," they have less standing to pursue any legal solution to Coulter's defamation of them.
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