Ann Coulter Makes My Local Paper Angry Even When They Haven't Read Her
I now print another response of mine to my local editor's brilliant ruminations. The last time I sent her a response, my letter was ignored in favor of letters who, while taking the same position I did, also were written with all the acumen of an inbred fourteen-year old hayseed. This is always prefereable to liberals.
This time, at least, they sent me a note telling me that I while my letter was indeed usable, that I needed to "distill" it down to a 200-300 word piece.
I refused, citing that the entire inertia of my thinking would be destroyed. Quite frankly, I cannot employ the same, condescending gaps of silence used by liberal journalists. I am also not that arrogant to assume that my every thought is Holy Writ--and thus given its life-blood by implication.
Case in point, I submit the two little paragraphs that set me afoot to the word-processor:
A local online commenter who cowers behind a pseudonym, on the Thursday death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: "American liberals are all in mourning today..."
Rattlesnake Ann Coulter, on the 9/11 widows who take issue with government policies: "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much. ... Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they better hurry up and appear in Playboy." It takes a special kind of person to spew her kind of poison.
Oooooh. Very insightful. My response:This time, at least, they sent me a note telling me that I while my letter was indeed usable, that I needed to "distill" it down to a 200-300 word piece.
I refused, citing that the entire inertia of my thinking would be destroyed. Quite frankly, I cannot employ the same, condescending gaps of silence used by liberal journalists. I am also not that arrogant to assume that my every thought is Holy Writ--and thus given its life-blood by implication.
Case in point, I submit the two little paragraphs that set me afoot to the word-processor:
A local online commenter who cowers behind a pseudonym, on the Thursday death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: "American liberals are all in mourning today..."
Rattlesnake Ann Coulter, on the 9/11 widows who take issue with government policies: "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much. ... Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they better hurry up and appear in Playboy." It takes a special kind of person to spew her kind of poison.
Editor,
When you ran the Mohammed cartoons on your editorial page, I had a momentary but fleeting hope that you were perhaps cut from a slightly different part of the journalistic brisket. I've now rethought that deduction. My letters, though not frequent nor daily, are routinely never printed for whatever reason. Yet today, I see that you've run the most obvious of self-pitched softballs from the League of Anonymity: a pseudonym-wielding reader who said "American liberals are all in mourning today . . ." as a satirical dig stemming from Al-Zarqawi's death. There were plenty of people perfectly happy to attach their name to such an assertion--including me. The problem is, if you'd used somebody who'd actually attached his or her name to it, then you might actually have to address it (although I'd prefer to attach the thought to the White House Press Corps. myself). There must be some degree of truth to the statement, otherwise I would not be seeing maudlin journalistic screeds that basically worry whether or not “guys who the dropped the bomb on an Al-Qeida leader may have hit him, too.”
But my real point is what appears to be the absolute zenith of journalistic laziness on your part. I've already read Ann Coulter's book, and happen to understand the context in which she employed the terms you've so dutifully parroted but never qualified. "9/11 widows who take issue with governmental policies?" Come on. These four women (read all, according to Coulter's detractors), became the de facto spokespeople for all the 9/11 victims and their relatives (and oddly enough, endorsed the politically bi-polar military hawk, John Kerry), and even odder, drowned out the voices of the fireman’s wives whose attempts to support the war on terror never saw the light of day.
Coulter builds a pretty airtight case that grinding political axes against the President was trumping any real desire to get to the bottom of the 9/11 issues (just read what they say about the President). This is the part that the hard left hopes to convince you not to read by focusing on two comments that sound like a bald-faced attack on their grief. They want to dissuade you from read the things that actually offend them, by committing a contextual sin of culling out a tiny part from the book they think will offend you. They certainly don’t want you reading about the constant and ongoing forging of the fossil record to support the most faith based theology ever taught in schools: evolution. “No, let’s use this inflammatory quote over here, instead.”
This is where Coulter proves she’s so much smarter than most of her detractors. The same people who can’t wait to believe in American massacres, prisoner abuses, toilet-flushed Korans, and manufactured National Guard documents (paging Dan Rather. We have a cleanup near the greeter zone) can neither overcome their congenital need to point out the one piece of bait Ms. Coulter planted for them.
Perhaps you should actually read the book, Ms. Brewer. I know it’s easier to let the Daily Kos do it for you, but c’mon. Quit writing introspective columns about how deep—how human journalists are and do your job. I know you have the ability, because I’ve seen you do it before.
Sure sure, I know. "Distill your thoughts" is merely a non-clever editorial tool for "if we cut out everything in your letter we don't like, it'll look really obvious. So instead you do it."
That's why I have this blog, to be quite frank.
--The Therapist
posted by Doofus @ 12:59 PM
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