[I have asked him about this. At the very least I suppose you can't really expect him to harshly criticize her. -- P]

It’s pretty clear that’s what Coulter meant - - and that a certain very few, very public, 9-11 witches weild their widow status as both club and shield in a vile kind of sheer political advocacy. Though I agree, Coulter didn’t communicate this point carefully enough.

Now that’s a defensible argument.

It’s more than defensible; it’s correct. What’s not defensible is your insistence on equating Coulter with Ted Rall over it. Rall is a completely different beast.

Wright’s attack was ineffectual, except insofar as Kaus was unable to think of the correct response. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one; just that the venue of live television doesn’t suit some folks as well as others.

Depending on the circumstances, I absolutely might write that getting maimed may have been the best thing that ever happened to David Gelertner… and I don’t even mean that as a slam on him. I might even phrase it as Wright does in his analogy: “I’ve never seen someone so enjoy being maimed.”

Gelertner seems to have found a special joy in doing something he might never have thought of doing (or at least hadn’t so far) prior to receiving that special delivery from Ted Kaczynski. I cannot inhabit his mind, obviously; but if I had extensive dealings with him, I might well come to the conclusion that he is far happier now, after the maiming, that he was before.

I can’t say that for sure about Gelertner; but I have absolutely known people who were horribly maimed (losing limbs), and who themselves said it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

I have never met Charles Krauthammer, and if I did I might not ask him this question (then again I might; I may not be safe for polite company): but he is a good candidate for another such. Had he not dived into a pool without water (or whatever his diving accident was), he almost certainly would simply have ended up a practicing psychiatrist.

Perhaps Krauthammer would have been perfectly happy. But it’s just as likely he would have lived a life of “quiet desperation,” as so many do.

Would he ever have become a political columnist? Would he have abandoned the MD and used his undergraduate degree instead, as he does now? Once you have an advanced degree in a profession, there is momentous pressure to use it.

He might have overcome it. Maybe he would even be happier just being a psychiatrist… but I doubt both propositions. To the extent that he is spiritually and intellectually more fulfilled by doing what he does, he may well say that being paralyzed was the best thing that ever happened to him.

And someone who knew that about him could legitimately say, “I never knew anyone who so enjoyed being paralyzed” — and not even mean it as an attack.

Now Coulter obviously meant what she said as an attack, and of course she meant it exactly the way it came out. It was written, for heaven’s sake; if she didn’t mean it that way, she would have corrected it before turning in the manuscript, or at least in page proofs.

But I will not follow you down the road of saying that it can never be accurate to say that certain people are “enjoying” the deaths of family members.

I don’t know enough about the Jersey Girls themselves; I know more about “Mother” Sheehan… I would neither be offended nor would I disagree if someone said that he had never seen anyone enjoying the death of her son so much.

Sheehan is so satisfied with her new life, made possible only because of the death of Casey Sheehan, that she has completely abandoned her family — including Casey Sheehan’s brother Andy and her two other children.

That sounds like a choice.

She is Mother Sheehan now, high priestess of the anti-war faction that permanently lives at Camp Casey (not that the eponymous Casey Sheehan would necessarily appreciate the “honor”). If her children were more important to her than fame and godhead, she would be with them. She is not.

You have not persuaded me, Patterico, that what Coulter said should not have been said about anyone; you could still perhaps persuade me that it was unjust to say it specifically about the Jersey Girls… but you have not yet tried.

Now that’s a defensible argument.

The response has been a collective “You Can’t Say That!” from much of the dextropunditocracy, met with a collective ‘eh’ from the rank and file - AC’s just doing what AC does.

The best example I can come up with is that you don’t kick a dog for pissing on a fire hydrant, because that’s just what dogs do.

Remember, folks: Exposure to Coulter requires an affirmative choice on your part. If the means by which she explains herself is so reprehensible, then the best thing to do is to turn elsewhere for comment and opinion. If her method of writing is so gross and distasteful, then the results will reveal themselves in the sales figures, and she may have to check herself a little bit.

She wrote this book to sell copies of the book, not to appease those who would wish upon her a little more genteel approach to political discourse.

It’s pretty clear that’s what Coulter meant - - and that a certain very few, very public, 9-11 witches weild their widow status as both club and shield in a vile kind of sheer political advocacy. Though I agree, Coulter didn’t communicate this point carefully enough.

She gored a liberal sacred cow (grief = absolute moral authority) and they are still reeling from it.

Nancy Grace became a prosecutor because of her fiancee’s murder. So it’s true that these women are benefiting from the situation. A more accurate assessment might be that they’re strong enough to share their pain and try to make the world a better place.

Ann Coulter is a well-known product and maybe more of a caricature than even Michael Moore. When I go to a Michael Moore movie, I know what to expect. Also, with the media landscape so competitive we’re going to see more and more of these over the top, P.T. Barnum type of comments. That’s Ann’s style and what she said is just a reflection of her act.