Posted on 10/22/2004 3:59:21 AM PDT by Entrepreneur
If you are of the mind that no one dare criticize Kristen Breitweiser because her husband died on 9/11 you might want to skip this article. I have no problem with Breitweiser speaking her piece, endorsing a political candidate or running for elected office. I am very sorry for her that her husband was killed when the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. More to the point, she is an American and is free to do as she pleases. That said, I am more than tired of the media giving Breitweiser a free pass because she was one of thousands who lost a loved one on 9/11. If she wants to play political hardball it ought to be a two-way street.
Breitweiser no longer has a valid claim to trot out her tired "I'm a 9/11 widow" defense for every criticism or challenge to her point of view. She has come up with real arguments and be held accountable for her wildly inconsistant statements. To quote that noted Republican strategist, Britney Spears, Breitweiser is "not that innocent."
Just weeks after 9/11, Breitweiser was working as an activist, meeting with top Democrat officials like Richard Gephardt and pushing for Congress to give 9/11 families tax-relief. Within a year of 9/11 she had formed September 11th Advocates to push her agenda for a 9/11 investigation which soon turned into a platform for Breitweiser and her Jersey Girls pals to bash the Bush administration.
In the weeks preceding the first anniversary of 9/11, Breitweiser went on national TV to promote her call for what became the 9/11 Commission. She told Phil Donahue,
...we are fighting for an independent investigation, an investigation into 9/11 removed from the political process. We don't feel comfortable with Congress investigating itself, basically. You have congressional committees that had oversight duties with the FBI and the CIA. We want politics removed. We want pure accountability, and we feel that an independent investigation is needed to have that.
But Breitweiser did not just want an investigation she wanted a say in the scope and duration of an investigation. In a Letter to the Editor in the New York Times, Breitweiser took issue with Republican concerns, expressed by Ari Fleischer, that an open-ended investigation of unlimited scope and duration would lead to a politicized investigation of some very serious issues. Breitweiser wrote:
...to limit the scope and duration of a commission so that it cannot thoroughly examine fault, to limit its subpoena power so that information and answers are not forthcoming, and to insist upon having the president nominate the chairman, who will control the commission's agenda, smacks of "paralysis and politics."
This is a line of argument lifted straight from then-current DNC talking points.
In the end, Bush administration concerns were borne out and it was Breitweiser herself who was among the most active in politicizing the 9/11 hearings, using her numerous media appearances to take pot shots at President Bush and Bush administration officials. She rarely, if ever, volunteered criticism of anyone but Bush and his officials or noted that terrorists, not the government, killed her husband.
After one too many appearances on Hardball, it was The National Debate that first called on the media to recognize what Breitweiser had become - a partisan political operative. The next day, Dorothy Rabinowtiz of The Wall Street Journal picked up the theme. Howard Kurtz joined in by reporting on our two commentaries. Rush Limbaugh was next up when he asserted that two of the Jersey Girls had been coached by Democrats to criticize Bush
Breitweiser responded directly to Limbaugh in a letter:
I am one of the widows you are wrongly accusing of being 'schooled' by the Democratic Party. My name is Kristen Breitweiser. I am not a Democrat. I voted for President Bush. So did my husband who was killed on 9/11.
This is classic disingenuous Breitweiser, "Don't criticize me, I'm a widow". In other words, how could I be working with the Democrats when I voted for Bush? When my dead husband voted for Bush?
Yet this is the same Breitweiser who was criticizing Bush campaign ads last March in words again lifted directly from DNC talking points - words now featured on the Kerry campaign site. If her concern is with a non-partisan examination of intelligence failures why is she commenting on Republican campaign ads?
In the current edition of Newsweek, Breitweiser portrays hers as a spontaenous decision to endorse John Kerry just a few weeks ago. When asked whether there was a particular moment that triggered her decision to speak out in favor of Kerry, Breitweiser laughably told Newsweek,
"For me, it was the Republican National Convention."
Even better, Breitweiser goes on to say it was RNC speeches which referenced 9/11 that pushed her to back Kerry. In other words, as is often the case with Breitweiser, it's George Bush's fault that she is now campaigning for Kerry.
And about accusations over the past year that she is a Democratic political operative? If we are to believe Breitweiser, up until a couple of weeks ago she had nothing to do with the Democrats. Yet suddenly she is so determined to elect John Kerry that she is giving press conferences, signed up to make campaign appearances and offers that she is "committed" to do everything she can to elect John Kerry. She even makes it a point to tell everyone who will listen that she is even willing to fly on an airplane, something she has not done since 9/11 because she has been too frightened to fly.
Keep in mind that the 9/11 Commission was formally dissolved on Aug. 21, 2004. The Republican National Convention began on Aug. 30, 2004. So, if we take Breitweiser at her word, she waited all of about nine days to go from "independence", "removal from the political process", and "pure accountability" to becoming an openly partisan political operative taking on a high profile role in a Presidential campaign just weeks away from the election.
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A month had not passed since the 9/11 Commission closed-up shop but Breitweiser was already actively engaged in carrying water for the Kerry campaign on national TV. She even signed off on a Kerry Campaign press release entitled "9/11 Families Endorse John Kerry for President" and includes a statement from Kerry saying,
"I'm honored that the 9/11 families have chosen to endorse me for president of the United States".
For the record, Breitwesier and her crew constitute 6 out of roughly 3,000 families.
Now, flashback six months when Breitweiser slammed President Bush over a GOP ad that briefly showed a flag-draped coffin being carried out of the World Trade Center site.
"[Bush] should not be using 9/11 as political propaganda," said Breitweiser.
The irony of a woman who has come to personsify "9/11 as political propaganda" making such a statement and now working to elect John Kerry is striking. That the media allows her to get away with it just highlights the Ratherization of the media' role in electorial politics.
I think it is safe to say that Breitweiser owes a few folks an apology starting with me, Dorothy Rabinowitz and Rush Limbaugh.
I'm not sure about Rush and Dorothy but I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by Robert Cox at September 24, 2004 01:59 PM
KRISTEN BREITWEISER READIES SENATE BID
The "Jersey Girls" who got so much airtime and fawning attention from the MSM represent somewhere between five and 12 families. HUNDREDS of other families of 9/11 victims have a different view, which was overlooked by the MSM (of course)...
Before Breitweiser was blaming Bush for not preventing 9/11 or reading with children while her husband was dying, she was upset because the money wasn't flowing fast enough to 9/11 survivors. I'm not unsympathetic to her plight, but this wasn't the government's fault. I mean, what if her husband was killed in a mugging instead on 9/10? She claimed that she was unable "to mourn, to exhale (because) since September 11, we've been holding our breath" over money since the government hadn't compensated the survivors for economic and non-economic damage...
Families of Terror Victims Anxiously Await Unveiling of Federal Aid
Read the transcript from her Hardball interview and you can see how she transferred her loss and grief into animosity towards President Bush and the entire administration, believing that 9/11 could have been prevented...
Kristen Breitweiser On Hardball - Transcript
She led the Jersey Girls protest that Bush was exploiting 9/11. As Dorothy Rabinowitz noted in the Wall Street Journal, people were growing tired of the Jersey Girls...
The 9/11 Widows Americans are beginning to tire of them.
I feel for her and for everyone who lost someone on 9/11 or in Iraq or any other time. It seems clear to me, however, that this is a very bitter woman who started blaming the president to overcome the cognitive dissonance over losing her husband senselessly.
She is rarely quoted blaming the terrorists. In this, she has the classic liberal mindset (i.e., don't blame the criminal, blame society or the gun or the GOP). She appears to be driven by emotion over reason, though this might not be fair, given the experience of losing a loved one.
Nevertheless, if anyone is exploiting 9/11, it's Breitweiser. Appearing in the Kerry ad, for example, is pure exploitation. Claiming that the 9/11 Commission found that Americans are less safe is an out and out lie. Claiming that because of the 9/11 Commission, she decided to back Kerry is inconsistent with her earlier statements that the Republican National Convention convinced her to support Kerry.
I could go on. All in all, I feel sorry for her.
BTW, I don't feel sorry for her anymore. She a willfully ignorant menace.
Good find. Nevermind that it's old news. That's why we're blogging away, to inform each other. Thanks.
Maybe Christopher Reeve's widow will compete for the seat in the primary. I don't know which is worse: Heinz Kerry golddigging or those who use death and disability for political opportunism. The latter category includes Carnahan from Missouri, the Wellstone family, and Sarah Brady.
Nothing like using your deceased husband for political gain. Geez.
What she does need is a time out so she can begin to think rationally about her loss. IT is WRONG to use her loss as a club to pound the lefty's agenda. I can't believe she sat through the hearings and wound up like this.
I wouldn't be angry if she was up to speed on national security issues as she claims to be. But she isn't. And the info is out there. And she chooses to remain ignorant.
There's no way to know whether she really voted for Bush in 2000, but it should be possible to discover what party she and her late husband registered under that year. I'd take serious odds it wasn't republican. If they were indies, she may yet pull this off; if they were dems, she's got a lot more 'splaining to do.
Well, unfortunately for Ms. Breitweiser and Lurch, the truth is out there. And not everyone is choosing to wear blinders.
It's only her word that she voted for Bush...and seeing her track record, that staement is very suspect.
I christened them the 9-11 Hags during the 9-11 Kangaroo Commission and I stand by it more each day.
If she's serious about the Senate seat, her biuggest problem will be the NJ Dem primary...with all the shenanigans there the last few years..Torricelli, Lautenberg..McGreevey..will Corzine step down to run for Gov..there are abotu 2 dozen NY Dem pols who've be waiting for their chance..i.e. Menendez...and the entire NJ Dem house delegation wants to get out of the House ..they won't just step aside for this lady...
I don’t presume to speak for the widows and the widowers from 9/11, but I have spoken with more than a few and they would like to point out to everyone that this dim bulb doesn’t speak for all of them. How many are endorsing Kerry; 4 or 5?? Well The ones I’ve spoken with do not want Mr. “terror is a nuisance” as their president. They are backing Bush but only wish he would do more.
I seem to recall a Gail Sheehy article in Vanity Fair about a year or so after 9/11 on the "Jersey Girls" in which Breitweiser mocked her dead husband's Republican politics. I think she's been a Demo all along, despite her protestations of having "voted for Bush". If someone could find this article, I seem to remember it directly contradicts her current statements.
They will if the Dem establishment tells them to do so. But Breitweiser, as far as I can see, is just another disposable useful idiot. And after the election, she'll disppear down the Dems' memory hole and won't be able to get anyone to even take her phone calls.
Here is what I have been waiting for. It took less long than I thought.
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