Originally posted by ASLANSPAL:
... Why not condemn Ann Coulter she actually said this! ...
Originally posted by ASLANSPAL:
... she states "you know if you had just done a little better we could have won that thing ...why did you fail"
...
To disabled Vietnam vet Bobby Muller: "No wonder you guys lost." - MSNBC, 1996
To a disabled Vietnam vet: "People like you caused us to lose that war."---MSNBC
I didn't personally listen to the original MSNBC debate between Ann Coulter and Robert Muller back in 1996 so I can not attest, with certainty, to the comments made or not made. I don't normally listen to those kinds of things because people rarely get to truly explain their views. The debates become very argumentative and things can get out of hand.
However, always amazed at the extent to which the liberal smoke blowers will distort the truth, I decided to do a bit of research on the allegations and, as I suspected, found the reports to be less than the full truth.
Some sources claim that she said "People like you caused us to lose that war." which is apparently a carefully designed paraphrase of the actual quotation. ASLANSPAL's gross stretch of the meaning to an outright condemnation is even worse than the parphrasing done by the news media!
Coulter says she didn't say it the way it's being quoted and has the tape to prove it. She says the point at issue was Muller's particular argument against the US military protecting itself with land mines and that he was portraying our troops in Viet Nam as a bunch of incompetent stooges and claimed that a leading cause of casualties was stepping on our own land mines. Such an allegation by Muller was completely untrue! She says she made the obvious response "No wonder you guys lost.", in a sarcastic manner, but that in no way implied the meaning now attributed to her comments by the misquotations and out of context interpretations. Knowing Muller's confrontational style and strong antiwar sentiment it seems very likely she's telling the truth about the context in which the words were spoken.
John Cloud, Connecticut Forum, 4/25/2005
Eight months later, Coulter's relationship with MSNBC ended permanently after she tangled with a disabled Vietnam veteran on the air. Robert Muller, co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, asserted that "in 90% of the cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up [in Vietnam]--Ann, are you listening?--they were our own mines." (Muller was misquoting a 1969 Pentagon report that found that 90% of the components used in enemy mines came from U.S. duds and refuse.) Coulter, who found Muller's statement laughable, averted her eyes and responded sarcastically: "No wonder you guys lost." It became an infamous--and oft-misreported--Coulter moment. The Washington Post and others turned the line into a more personal attack: "People like you caused us to lose that war."
Steve Rendall, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, 11-12/2002
In the MSNBC NewsChat segment, in which Coulter debated Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, her exact words to the paralyzed veteran were: "No wonder you guys lost." She was interrupting Muller's point about the role that landmines played in the Vietnam War: "In 90 percent of cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up--Ann, are you listening?--they were our own mines." Muller responded to Coulter's remark with an incredulous "Say that again," while moderator Felicia Taylor sharply rebuked the in-house pundit: "OK, we're not going to get into that conversation. Ann, that was unnecessary! Mr. Muller, please continue...."
I'm neither a strong advocate or critic of Coulter because I don't normally read her commentaries. However, from what I've learned, I seriously doubt she meant anything even close to what's been repeated by the liberals and I don't believe she blames the troops for the war in Viet Nam. I suspect this is more of the liberal antiwar movement's efforts to find - even fabricate - faults in their opponents. For certain, I don't care for Muller's views despite respecting his personal sacrifice. At worse case, I believe Coulter made a poor choice of words in the heat of the debate. When dealing with someone like Muller I can understand how that might come about.
Regardless, Coulter's comments have no effect whatsoever on my own observations and opinions about Viet Nam war veterans.
Patrick
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