Coulter hides behind 9-11 widows after attacking liberals for doing the same

Summary: On Scarborough Country, Ann Coulter purported to defend her attacks on some of the widows of September 11 victims, claiming that she has "heard from lots of 9-11 widows who think I wasn't harsh enough."

On the June 26 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter defended her hateful comments about some of the widows of victims killed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Coulter, who has accused liberals of using 9-11 widows as "human shields" to blunt criticism of their views, claimed "I've heard from lots of 9-11 widows who think I wasn't harsh enough." As Media Matters for America has noted, on Page 103 of her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum), Coulter unleashed the following attack on the 9-11 widows who criticized the Bush administration's handling of terrorism: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

Coulter did not name the 9-11 widows who allegedly said her attacks were insufficiently harsh.

From the June 26 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country:

JOE SCARBOROUGH (host) : So I want to talk about the media firestorm you've been in the past couple of weeks. And I want to start with the question, is there anything that you've said about the 9-11 widows or on any other subject that you wish you could have taken -- you wish you could take back or that you may have measured your words more carefully with, or do you stand by everything you've said?

COULTER: Are you seriously asking that question?

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, I --

COULTER: Do you want to retract that question?

SCARBOROUGH: No, I don't, because --

COULTER: And by the way --

SCARBOROUGH: But I'm curious -- go ahead.

COULTER: It was nothing about the 9-11 widows. It was about four liberal women in New Jersey cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. I've heard from lots of 9-11 widows who think I wasn't harsh enough. They do not speak for 9-11 widows. In fact, in my book, if you read that section -- a small section of a chapter -- I demanded to hear from some of the other 9-11 widows, maybe the wives of firemen rather than these four women claiming to speak for all 9-11 widows, while opposing everything Bush is doing in the war on terrorism and promoting the 9-11 Commission.

—K.D.