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Fifth Column
Susan Sontag assails US ambassador
2003-10-14
Left-wing U.S. author Susan Sontag criticised the US ambassador to Germany, Daniel Coats, on Sunday for failing to attend a Frankfurt ceremony where she received a prestigious peace prize. "He should be here while a citizen of his country receives this prize," she told 700 German dignitaries in Frankfurt and a national television audience, "so that I could harrangue him and embarass him to his face."
He probably didn't come because he doesn't like you, Suzy...
Sontag, 70, who has criticized US wars from Vietnam to Iraq, said the ambassador had declined an invitation to the ceremony in June, directly after the award was announced. Coats’ absence was a deliberate expression of the "ideological position" of the U.S. administration.
Ambassador Dan Coats apparently is aware of which country he represents... the United Staes of America and its President, George W. Bush.
Sontag, who has written both novels and essays, referred in her acceptance speech to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s attack on "Old Europe" earlier this year, when France and Germany led opposition to US intervention in Iraq. "We cannot do without the old," said Sontag,
"I mean, look at me! I'm old."
a sceptic who enraged Americans after the September 11 attacks by writing, "Whatever may be said of the perpetrators, they were not cowards." Sontag however had been infuriated at the "inertia" of the European Union nations, when they refused to intervene militarily in the Balkans in the 1990s to prevent ethnic conflict.
You like Old Europe? Fine. Go hang out and sulk with all your amis Francopessimismes.
Bitch, bitch, bitch. With some people it's a verb. With others it's a noun...
Posted by:Seafarious

#19  Formula 1 was running a few hours earlier

Praise Allah, Ferrarai again dwells in circle of winners. Rubino (pbuh) protects the infidel Schumacher.

Next stop.... the Malay Entity.
Posted by: Shipman   2003-10-14 10:00:55 PM  

#18  Dissed her ass.
Good,the bitch is a bitch.(was that redundant)
Posted by: Raptor   2003-10-14 6:15:47 PM  

#17  Formula 1 was running a few hours earlier....
Posted by: True German Ally   2003-10-14 4:21:37 PM  

#16  Maybe Coats had some er ... ambassadorial duties to perform. I'm sure he wouldn't stiff such an important intellectual. Maybe Peewee's Big Top was on cable. I'd love to see Peewee dubbed in German. It would be better than Hoss Cartright dubbed in Japanese.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-10-14 4:04:13 PM  

#15  Oh, yes, the maunderings of a "public intellectual", which I define as " someone that you know what they are going to say, as soon as you see their name supered under their chattering head on TV". They've certainly been a big help lately...
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2003-10-14 4:02:56 PM  

#14  And I suppose Sontag thinks the Jews provoked Haman, ro'Hitler, and Fishie?
Posted by: Atrus   2003-10-14 3:47:27 PM  

#13  Angie, thanks for the clarification. It proves the point though. It wasn't so much the words, but the attitude that America was wrong, coming days after Sept 11 that really ticked people off.
Posted by: Yank   2003-10-14 3:36:22 PM  

#12  How stupid is Susan Sontag? She's so stupid that she doesn't understand how life would be for her if she actually lived in Europe, instead of pining to make the USA into Europe. Here in the US she can be Dr. Sontag, Susan Sontag, Ms. Sontag, Susan, Sue or even Suzie.

In France, she would be known as "the Jew Sontag." And nothing else. And to prevent herself from being excluded from the oh-so-most-important circles on the Left Bank, she'd have to wind her screed even further to the left.

She doesn't get it: her success is entirely due to her being an American.
Posted by: Steve White   2003-10-14 3:28:47 PM  

#11  "Left-wing U.S. author Susan Sontag…"

Can you say "an understatement"?
Posted by: Atrus   2003-10-14 2:16:50 PM  

#10  Yank---actually, Dinesh D'Souza said that the hijackers weren't cowards on Maher's show, to which Maher replied that we were the cowards for bombing from a great height. That's what got him in trouble with his sponsors.

I read Sontag's piece after September 11, and it was just drivel. That's what pisses me off as much as anything---that there vast herds of "intellectuals" and "writers" who couldn't think or write their way out of a wet paper bag. And I'm supposed to respect their judgment? I think not.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2003-10-14 2:09:42 PM  

#9  Ok, does this strike anyone else as something straight out of high school? As in, "None of the popular or cool kids came to my poetry reading....they all went to the football game instead! Waaaah!"
I don't know how old Mr Coats is, but if he was one of the unfortunates like me who was forced to read her dreck in college, I can understand precisely why he stayed away.
Posted by: Baba Yaga   2003-10-14 1:59:19 PM  

#8  Sontag, a sceptic who enraged Americans after the September 11 attacks by writing, "Whatever may be said of the perpetrators, they were not cowards."

No, they were religous maniacs with delusions of Porn Paradise dancing in their heads. Deluded sociopaths, but not cowardly deluded sociopaths...
Posted by: mojo   2003-10-14 1:53:05 PM  

#7  Sontag however had been infuriated at the "inertia" of the European Union nations, when they refused to intervene militarily in the Balkans in the 1990s to prevent ethnic conflict.

That's what happens where "Old Europe" is concerned. Still think we "can't do without the old"??
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2003-10-14 1:50:56 PM  

#6  TGA, my apologies. Here is your post from Sunday, with your excellent comments. As always, I appreciate your viewpoints and your willingness to debate. Thanks also from this American!
Posted by: Seafarious   2003-10-14 1:12:46 PM  

#5  As I commented on Sunday ambassador Coats wasn't the only one who went AWOL in Frankfurt...
Posted by: True German Ally   2003-10-14 1:02:47 PM  

#4  --"We cannot do without the old," said Sontag,--

She's 70, right? Oh, yes we can, Susan. This isn't your fight.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-10-14 12:56:43 PM  

#3  I wasn't aware that there was any obligation for an Ambassador to show up at cermonies to celebrate private citizens. I thougth their obligation was to represent their home country to the host country.

It's funny, that whole "Whatever may be said of the perpetrators, they were not cowards." thing keeps popping up. Sontag said it, Bill Maher said it, and Mark Steyn said it. Sontag and Maher took heat and Steyn did not. Perhaps its not the saying but the anti-American bile behind the statement that caused Maher and Sontag to feel the heat.
Posted by: Yank   2003-10-14 12:55:08 PM  

#2  Bravo to the Ambassador! If he gets in trouble, then we should rally to his support.
!
Posted by: Ptah   2003-10-14 12:05:44 PM  

#1  Dan Coats, a former Senator, has done more in an afternoon nap for America than Ms. Sontag has in a lifetime. Her whining and crying for attention in the winter of her miniscule career warms my heart.
Posted by: Frank G   2003-10-14 11:44:44 AM  

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