Ann Coulter is right. Yesterday's
much maligned assault on the 9/11 widows, Cindy Sheehan, and our eyesight (she was in a
cocktail dress in the early morning) contained an unmistakable truth: the only Democratic spokespeople that are reliably listened to are our infallible victims.
It's taken me a full day to come to grips with the fact that Coulter is right, but not for the reasons she thinks she is. Yes, our most powerful Democratic voices are infallible because of their victimhood, or in some cases their heroism during wartime. But the only reason they are trotted out as the liberal voice on Iraq, homeland security, and foreign policy is that the traditional media and pundit class refuse to listen to regular, run-of-the-mill liberals in the first place. If Democratic pols were respected for their policy views and did not have to fear immediate RNC fund attack adds on (take your pick of the meme: soft on crime, soft on terrorism, pro-terrorist, anti-family values, anti-American), we wouldn't have to rely on spokespeople whose power and authenticity comes from their tragic losses.
LAUER: So if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?
COULTER: No, but don't use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for being able to talk about, while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point. Let Bill Clinton make the point. Don't put up someone I am not allowed to respond to without questioning the authenticity of their grief.
LAUER: Well apparently you are allowed to respond to them.
COULTER: Yeah, I did.
LAUER: So, in other words.
COULTER: That is the point of liberal infallibility. Of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows, of putting out Joe Wilson. No, no, no. You can't respond. It's their doctrine of infallibility. Have someone else make the argument then.
LAUER: What I'm saying is I don't think they have ever told you, you can't respond.
COULTER: Look, you are getting testy with me.
LAUER: No. I think it's a dramatic statement. "These broads are millionaires stalked by stalked by grief-parazzies"? "I have never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much"?
COULTER: Yes, they are all over the news.
Leaving aside the probability that its tautological to say that an infallible spokesperson is the best one and her consistently reprehensible diction, Coulter ignores the precursor to every one of the alleged liberals she maligns. Cindy Sheehan, the 9/11 Widows, Jack Murtha and Joe Wilson all speak for us with power because they are, to varying degrees, unimpeachable. But for every Cindy Sheehan there are dozens of Russ Feingolds, Michael Moores, Noam Chomskys, and Cornell Wests. Yet Coulter and, worse, the actual mainstream portions of the traditional media refuse to recognize the value of the opinion who knows that a policy is wrong simply by looking at it and saying so - let alone actually studying history and current affairs to support that opinion academically.
We would not have to rely on the 9/11 widows if the Bush administration had headed the Clinton administration's warnings on Al Qaeda, let alone it's on intelligence briefings declaring "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US." Worse, as our homeland remains in adequately guarded and funds are continuously misallocated, the only people whose voices can be heard are the ones who've had family members murdered at the hands for terrorists.
Infallibility is not a desire I look for in a spokesperson. I wish we didn't have to rely on grieving victims of failed policies of a failed government to hear something accurate in the media. But Coulter is right - she and the news networks that keep bringing her on as a guest will only listen to liberals that have been broken down and abused by heartbreak.
The only way our parade of victims will cease is if the country, the media, and the GOP recognize that we liberals were right, are right, and will continue to be right when it comes to the best policies to protect our nation and influence change abroad. To quote some of Digby's favorite words:
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
Cross posted at Emboldened.