I admire your scruples. Yet her punchline from that column shouldn't be forgotten by those worshipers who are touting the savage, abusive Coulter as (may the gods forgive them) the next Mencken:
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."
As for the article heading this thread, I haven't read it in full, and I refuse to do so. I retched when I saw enough of the first few paragraphs to recognize the absurd destination of her viewpoint: She sees the news media as orchestrating the shuttle-disaster coverage, in its scope and emotion, to divert supposedly needed attention from the Iraq Crusade.
I am as annoyed by the excess media bathos as anyone who dislikes wallowing in cheap theatrics. Yet what terminal cynics such as Coulter are forgetting is that the chord of emotion that the space program touches is that of RESPECT FOR ACHIEVEMENT. Soldiers perform an essential task, without which we could not live, but they achieve nothing on net beyond the prevention of calamity or tyranny.
Scientists do achieve, even those who don't succeed in their original objectives ... or who die trying. They advance a cultural respect for seeking truth, if nothing else. Those on the shuttle died -- yes, ignoring their tax-funded context for a moment -- for the sake of advancement of knowledge. Just how many times has this happened since Giordano Bruno, Galileo's inspiration, was burned at the stake?
This is what Americans are responding to with, yes, the occurrence of this tragedy. Except for Coulter and her ilk, who don't care about tearing the striving toward values into shreds, if they can become rhetorical meat for her grinder.
Wow... even Ann Coulter gets misunderstood by conservatives.
To me that seems an obvious slam at Islam's method of evangelism.