'Scuse the language, but I've been mulling this over for a couple of days since I read about Ann Coulter's supposed gaffe on Drudge. I'm a little surprised at the reaction, because the accusations she actually levels at the Jersey Girls aren't that different from Christopher Hitchens' "ventriloquize the dead" statements about Cindy Sheehan in Slate. Except that the left was never quite able to demonize Hitchens in the way they'd have liked. But the truth is that these four women did pretty much what Cindy and Papa Berg did, by using their loved one's death to further their own socio/political agenda. If you agree with that agenda you'll probably see nothing wrong with that, but if not you'll see them as either crazy with grief or as manipulative opportunists. In either case they aren't sacrosanct. They made themselves public figures, after all. TigerHawk, who was a lawschool classmate of Ann's, has much more on the "defense of the indefensible."
Posted by Demosophist at June 8, 2006 03:39 PM | TrackBack