KERRY AND HIS MONEY - Ann Coulter strikes again! (and says it well!)

If Bush can't talk to Kerry about the horrors of war, then Kerry sure as
hell can't talk to anyone about the plight of the middle class. Kerry's
life experience consists of living off other men's money by marrying their
wives and daughters.

For over 30 years, Kerry's primary occupation has been stalking lonely
heiresses. Not to get back to his combat experience, but Kerry sees a
room full of wealthy widows as "a target-rich environment." This is a
guy whose experience dealing with tax problems is based on spending his
entire adult life being supported by rich women. What does a kept
man know about taxes?

In 1970, Kerry married into the family of Julia Thorne -- a family
estimated to be worth about $300 million. She got depressed, so he promptly
left her and was soon seen catting around with Hollywood starlets, mostly
while the cad was still married. (Apparently, JFK really was his mentor.)
Thorne is well-bred enough to say nothing ill of her Lothario ex-husband.
He is, after all, the father of her children -- a fact that never seemed
to constrain him.

When Kerry was about to become the latest Heinz family charity, he sought
to have his marriage to Thorne annulled, despite the fact that it had
produced two children. It seems his second meal ticket, Teresa Heinz,
wanted the first marriage annulled -- and Heinz is worth more than
$700 million. Kerry claims he will stand up to powerful interests,
but he can't even stand up to his wife.

Heinz made Kerry sign a prenuptial agreement, presumably aware of how
careless he is with other people's property, such as other people's
Vietnam War medals, which Kerry threw on the ground during a 1971 anti-war
demonstration.

At pains to make Kerry sound like a normal American, his campaign has
described how Kerry risked everything, mortgaging his home in Boston to
help pay for his presidential campaign. Technically, Kerry took out
a $6 million mortgage for "his share" of "the family's home" -- which was
bought with the Heinz family fortune. (Why should he spend his own money?
He didn't throw away his own medals.)

I'm sure the average working stiff in Massachusetts can relate to a guy
who borrows $6 million against his house to pay for TV ads.

Kerry's campaign has stoutly insisted that he will pay off the mortgage
himself, with no help from his rich wife. Let's see According to tax
returns released by his campaign, in 2002, Kerry's income was $144,091.
But as the Washington Post recently reported, even a $5 million mortgage
paid back over 30 years at favorable interest rates would cost $30,389 a
month -- or $364,668 a year.

The Democrats' joy at nominating Kerry is perplexing. To be sure, liberals
take a peculiar, wrathful pleasure in supporting pacifist military types.
and Kerry's life story is not without a certain feral aggression.

But if we're going to determine fitness for office based on life experience,
Kerry clearly has no experience dealing with problems of typical Americans
since he is a cad and a gigolo living in the lap of other men's money.
Kerry is like some character in a Balzac novel, an adventurer twirling
the end of his mustache and preying on rich women. This low-born
poseur with his threadbare pseudo-Brahmin family bought a political career
with one rich woman's money, dumped her, and made off with another heiress
to enable him to run for president.

If Democrats want to talk about middle-class tax cuts, couldn't they
nominate someone who hasn't been a poodle to rich women for past 33
years?

 

As with ANY politician, they only know whats in front of them. Most of them are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. And the ones who aren't it doesnt take long for the "system" to corrupt them when they get to washington.

I agree that in most cases the Dem.s want to cut defense, tax and spend it on social programs. The problem though is that Bush has spent (IMO) way too much money. Personally, I think he's been the best pres. in a long long time, but still likes spending money.

 

My first question would be who is Ann Coulter?My second question would be,is she usually this jealous?Her editorial gives me the impression that she is envious of Kerrys life-style.I don't think that it is a big deal to marry into money.She does little to convince me that she has anything to say that sounds rational.IMO.

 

Basicly Ann Coulter is a female version of Al Franken with a brain, and good looks.

 

prcrboy, any spending bill oringinate in the house of representatives. The president submits a budget, but congress in no way is required to pass it. We (the american people) keep electing the same congressmen, and they are the real root of the problem. ANYTHING the president tries can be overridden by a 66% majority in the house or senate. People are too short sighted to realize the president is not the one ruining the country. It's the 535 members of congress. And some judges.

 

You may be a Democrat if your stomach involuntarily wretches at the thought of your choices in the upcoming election.

 

exsqueeze me>>>

al franken?
NOT

she may be as radical as hannity, but she is no liberal/socialist! and she puts it all out there, does not hide behind ufamisms (sp?)...... i do not agree with her most of the time, but she does not make me sick

 

I must admit that I am a registered Republican. But I am not thrilled with the way G.W. has been running things. He is a Strong President with regard to his leadership style of "my way or the highway". But he is making to many mistakes that will come back to haunt us.
However The other choice of John Kerry (as someone else has noted) makes my stomach wretch. I can't abide by his vote as the wind blows record and his liberal stances. It is the classic case of the lesser of two evils vote. I will most likely go with G.W. because at least you know where he is coming from.

 

"But he is making to many mistakes that will come back to haunt us."

What mistakes?

 

I Believe that this country cannot continue to build up a huge deficit at the pace that G.W. is, the budget must be eventually balanced or the Federal government will find itself with a very weak Dollar. I also feel that the current administration standing with foriegn countries is the weakest of any administration that I can remember. Alienating so many other countries with such hair brained diplomacy can only hurt us in years to come. It creates a weakness at the bargaining table of international diplomacy that will cost us much to overcome.
I was all for taking down Saddam (WMD or not), But the timing was all wrong. We needed to finnish what we started in Afghanistan first. The capture and dismantling of Al'Queda was much more important then eliminating Saddam. Saddam was a tyrant and needed to go, but not at the expense of failing to capture and eliminate Al Queda. Bush jumped the gun on Iraq. He also is going to be in a Quagmire when it comes to rebuilding Iraq. His Administration was so concerned with destroying Saddams government that they failed to adequately plan the rebuilding of it. It we may be pulling out of Iraq on June 30th but we will be leaving a very weak governing body in place.

That being said, I am still going to vote for Bush. Because I dislike Kerry that much more!

 

Beyond the obvious smear factor, I don't get Coulter's point. As the saying goes, "It is just as easy to fall in love with a rich woman as a poor one."

So John Kerry married money. How is that somehow worse than inheriting it, as George Bush did?

I am tired of Ann Coulter's unprincipled attacks on good Americans, like the one described below.

_______________________________________________

By Joe Conason

Feb. 21, 2004 | Ann Coulter just won't stop assaulting the man with no legs and one arm -- but now she claims it's in self-defense. With characteristic panache, she insists that she is the real victim, because her slurs against former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland have provoked outraged protest. She's particularly indignant that some critics (including me) have branded her a liar. And in response, she has compounded her original lies.

Like many other conservatives, Coulter has watched with increasing fury as Cleland and other Democrats discussed the president's spotty service record in the National Guard. By last week, she had become so enraged that she wrote a column -- posted on patriotic Web sites such as the Heritage Foundation's Townhall.com and David Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine.com -- composed largely of insults to Cleland's integrity and record of service in Vietnam.

"Max Cleland should stop allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero who lost his limbs taking enemy fire on the battlefields of Vietnam," she demanded. Coulter went on to mock the grenade explosion that wounded Cleland so grievously as "an accident during a routine non-combat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends." With leaden sarcasm, she noted that Cleland "could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman." As she surely knows by now, he didn't drop a grenade at all. He picked up a grenade that he thought had fallen off his web gear.

As he learned many years later, another, less experienced soldier had dropped that lethal object -- and had mistakenly straightened the pin so that it detonated instantly when Cleland picked it up. There was nothing "stupid" about what he did; soldiers don't leave explosives lying around for their comrades to step on.

While Coulter could hardly deny that "Cleland wore the uniform, he was in Vietnam, and he has shown courage by going on to lead a productive life," as she so generously puts it, she still insisted that his service involved "no bravery" -- and flatly states that he did not "give his limbs for his country" or leave them "on the battlefield."

It's true that Cleland lost his limbs in an accident and not as the result of enemy fire. But that isn't the entire story, either. Without any information aside from Coulter's column, a reader would believe that Cleland never saw combat at all. That same reader also wouldn't know that he was decorated for the valor he displayed in one of the war's bloodiest battles, only four days before the accident that grievously maimed and nearly killed him.

Evidently Coulter thinks that nobody needs to know those minor facts about the man in the wheelchair. Following the criticism of her initial column attacking Cleland, she has responded with another -- and again omitted fundamental facts about his service.

She complains that his liberal defenders "are clearly implying -- without stating -- that Cleland lost his limbs in combat." In the very next sentence she states that Cleland "was not in combat" and "was not in the battle of Khe Sanh, as many others have implied." Had he not suffered the loss of his limbs, she smarmily reminds us, he would have ended up as a school teacher or a pharmacist, rather than a U.S. Senator and a Cabinet secretary. (What career does she believe George W. Bush would have pursued if he had been born into less privileged circumstances?)

She concludes by patronizing the remarkable Cleland for his post-injury "courage" and his "admirable life," while admonishing him not to let others "sex up" his war record for political reasons.

While such sneering at a decorated war veteran is certainly grotesque, any expectations of decency from Coulter have diminished precipitously over the years. More dismaying are the echoes of her more "respectable" right-wing admirers. Mark Steyn not only endorsed her slurs against Cleland but added his own. According to him, the former Georgia senator was "no hero" but instead "a beneficiary of the medal inflation that tends to accompany unpopular wars." As a Canadian "humorist" and former disc jockey, Steyn obviously possesses the expertise needed to form such harsh judgments. He scolds Cleland for being "happy to be passed off as a hero wounded in battle because that makes him a more valuable mascot to the [John Kerry] campaign."

Ugly, eh? It's hard to understand why the Chicago Sun-Times would import such vicious nonsense about an American hero.

Neither of Cleland's critics told the truth about him. Both misuse the modest remarks he has made in the past about his wartime experience to try to damage his reputation. He was indeed racked with self-doubt and depression after the accident that cost him his limbs. But that doesn't change the truth about who he is and what he did before that terrible day. He earned the decorations that these two termites now disparage.

Cleland defended his honor on cable television, where he told "Hardball" host Chris Matthews: "I volunteered for a combat mission with the 1st Air Cavalry division going in to break the siege at Khe Sanh, and if that isn't a combat mission, you ought to ask some of the people that were there and the 200 guys that were killed in that mission."

According to U.S. Army General Order 4361, dated June 9, 1968, Cleland's conduct during that siege was extraordinarily courageous. Let Coulter or Steyn find a witness who will contradict this Army citation, most recently quoted on the Senate floor last December by that new conservative idol, Sen. Zell Miller himself.

The full text, which cannot be reproduced widely enough, reads as follows:

"Awarded: Silver Star; Date Action: 4 April 1968; Theater: Republic of Vietnam

"Action: For gallantry in action while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam. Captain Cleland distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous action on 4 April 1968, while serving as communications officer of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry during an enemy attack near Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam.

"When the battalion command post came under a heavy enemy rocket and mortar attack, Capt. Cleland, disregarding his own safety, exposed himself to the rocket barrage as he left his covered position to administer first aid to his wounded comrades. He then assisted in moving the injured personnel to covered positions. Continuing to expose himself, Capt. Cleland organized his men into a work party to repair the battalion communications equipment which had been damaged by enemy fire. His gallant action is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflects great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

"Authority: By direction of the President, under the provisions of the Act of Congress, approved 9 July 1968."

What Coulter and Steyn did to Cleland by obscuring the truth about his war record is truly despicable. Neither of them would be worthy to shine his shoes -- if only he still needed them.

 

Well,first of all,welcome to FTE Vladimir.Thank you for the detailed insight into this Ann Coulters mind set,or lack there of.I see where she is coming from now.Sounds like she did a great injustice to Max Cleland.Seems she only uses her head to keep her ears apart.IMO.I will certainally steer clear of any articals she happens to write in the future.Her type of editorials do little to address the real problems.

 

How come there is more spilled milk over Heinz Ketchup/ then the high price of fuel that Bush has not addressed? Gee when the Democrats were in office and the price of fuel went up they did something about it.Not to talk about how the world is mad at us for not getting the UN ok before the war.At least Bush sr. Did the right thing here at least he waited for oks. Afganasten is justifible. Iraq on the other hand ahh that could have waited there was no weapens of mass dist. Were are they show them to me? then I can justifie being over there it is all about oil not ketchup. (IMO)

 

He is a politician, isn't that enough?

 

They are all politicains right they they all blow smoke at you they tell you this & tell you that just so you will vote for them. Come on now none of them good now. (IMO)