Coulter called previous remarks suggesting McVeigh should have bombed NY Times building “prescient”

Written by Joe Brown

Published

On the June 29 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter called her previous suggestion that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh should have bombed The New York Times' building “prescient,” given the Times' publication of a June 23 article detailing a Treasury Department program designed to monitor international financial transactions for terrorist activity.

As quoted in an August 26, 2002, New York Observer article, Coulter had previously stated: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” McVeigh's April 19, 1995, bomb attack destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

From the June 29 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: You know, Ann, I've been wrong about you.

HANNITY: Finally, he admits it.

COLMES: I, I, -- I've been set straight by Megan Daum of the L.A. Times, by Lee Salem with the Universal Press Syndicate, who defends you, who says this is just trenchant satire and that I have you all wrong. This is just brilliant satire.

The things you say, the things you write, when you say Tim McVeigh should have bombed the Times building, we should carpet-bomb them to convert them to Christianity, when fragging is why we invented John Murtha, I should be laughing at this.

COULTER: No, you got that backwards.

COLMES: This is -- these are all jokes. These are laughable, happy satire.

COULTER: But I like that.

COLMES: Right?

COULTER: I like that, that fragging is why we invented John Murtha. That is a good one.

COLMES: Oh, you like that? You see, I'm even going to give you material now, because I realize this is all comedic satire and that you're actually a liberal who's doing this to mock and parody the way conservatives think.

COULTER: Well, it's not working very well if -- if that were my goal.

COLMES: I think that's --

COULTER: No, I think the Timothy McVeigh line was merely prescient after The New York Times has leapt beyond -- beyond nonsense straight into treason, last week.

COLMES: Oh, so, so there you go again, once again reaffirming that we should bomb The New York Times.

Isn't that -- Kirsten [Powers, Democratic strategist], you've got to admit --

COULTER: Prescient.

COLMES: -- this is great humor. This belongs on Saturday Night Live. It belongs on The Daily Show.