Don’t Believe Everything You Haven’t Read

You know, it used to be that people would at least read or listen to something before they’d condemn it hysterically. Then came liberals who hate Ann Coulter. Judging solely by what they’ve read from The New York Times or heard from Matt Lauer, and without so much as being able to describe what’s on the cover of Godless: The Church of Liberalism, the far-left noise machine went to work screaming that Coulter was a vitriolic hatemonger (which is at least a little ironic). Not even a week after it first appeared on bookstore shelves, the far-left (predictably) went ballistic. A pair of Democrat Assemblywomen from New Jersey went so far as to demand her book be banned from New Jersey stores. So much for the party that allegedly champions free speech.

All of the hullabaloo began when- of all the things the left might consider venomous hate speech- some critic found a reference to the “Jersey Girls,” four women whose husbands were killed on September 11. I would describe them and their subsequent actions and political activity further, but I fear that would make me a heartless malicious Nazi hatemonger as well. No doubt searching for the most offensive thing he could find, this critic most likely came upon the section on the “Jersey Girls” not by reading the entire book but by finding out what was under “9/11” indexed in the back.

Not meaning to invite death threats, I will do the unthinkable: defend Ann Coulter. Of course, the highly-successful New York Times bestselling author hardly needs my help. First of all, Coulter’s criticism of the “Jersey Girls” was part of her chapter on a larger point, “The Liberal Doctrine of Infallibility: Sobbing Hysterical Women.” She characterized these four- FOUR- women as part of a larger group of people like Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, and others who supposedly have the “absolute moral authority” bestowed by whom else, Maureen Dowd. Coulter says this “absolute moral authority” gives these people the so-called right to say whatever they want- no matter how insane- with complete immunity from criticism. If anything, the frenzied overreaction from the left characterizes Coulter’s point perfectly.

Perhaps most importantly, Coulter distinguishes these four- FOUR- 9/11 widows from all others who lost someone in the very terrorist attacks the left now denies or has forgotten ever occurred in the first place. “The Jersey Girls weren’t interested in national honor,” she says, “they were interested in a lawsuit. They first came together to complain that the $1.6 million average settlement to be paid to 9/11 victims’ families by the government wasn’t enough.” Many other 9/11 widows did behave gracefully and courageously. Or at the very least they didn’t hold George Bush responsible for the attacks and acknowledged that other families lost loved ones too. “The whole nation was wounded, all of our lives reduced. But they believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process.”

The left’s visceral reaction to Coulter’s most recent book exposes a larger issue, the left’s war on freedom of speech (or at least speech with which they disagree). Sure they support pornography, obscenity, blasphemy, sedition, and comparisons of Bush to Hitler, but conservative thought they just can’t tolerate. Of course, nothing shows support of free speech like an old-fashioned book burning. Ann Coulter has the right under the Constitution to print whatever she wants, as much as the left doesn’t accept this. Then again, who am I to comment on Godless: The Church of Liberalism? I haven’t read it yet.