9/11 widows 'enjoying husbands' death': conservative pundit

Four widows instrumental in the creation of the 9/11 commission are "self-obsessed" and "enjoying their husbands' deaths," said conservative author Ann Coulter.

Coulter's comments are in her new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, in which she accuses the womenof using their grief for political purposes.

"These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them," she writes.

"They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony."

Known as the Jersey Girls, Kristin Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza pressed for the creation of the 9/11 Commission.

They have been publicly critical of U.S. President George W. Bush since the attacks, and endorsed Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid.

Coulter writes that the group shouldn't be using the spotlight to criticize Bush.

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them revelling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."

'These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them revelling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis.' -Author Ann Coulter on four 9/11 widows

In an appearance on MSNBC's The Situation on Tuesday, Coulter told host Tucker Carlson that the women, whom she calls the Witches of East Brunswick, should expect criticism if they are leaping into the political arena.

"If people are going to use a personal tragedy in their lives to inject themselves into a national debate, Im sorry, you can't just say, 'We're off limits. Now we're going to invoke the fact that our husbands died, you can't criticize us.'"

Kristin Breitweiser, one of the widows, said Coulter sounded like a "very disturbed, unravelled person."

"Having my husband burn alive in a building brought me no joy," Lorie Van Auken told the New York Daily News.