Alderaan survivors are enjoying homeworld's death, says author

S. Ann Coulter

IMPERIAL CITY (INS) Imperial Minister of Propaganda S. Ann Coulter sparked a storm after describing Alderannian survivors who backed the Rebellion as millionaire "witches" reveling in their status as celebrities.

"I've never seen people enjoying their homeworld's death so much," Coulter wrote, referring to the approximately 60,000 survivors of Alderaan, in her just-published book Godless: The Church of the Rebellion.

Coulter wrote that the survivors were millionaires as a result of the Imperial economy and were "reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis."

A spokesdroid for publisher Imperial Books said it had set a first print run of 1 billion copies of Godless and there were 2 billion copies of Coulter's previous four books in print.

The survivors, led by Leia Organa, declined to discuss the book in detail but issued a statement saying they had been slandered.

"There was no joy in watching the homeworld that we loved burn alive," said the statement, signed by Organa and other survivors. "There was no happiness in realizing that we would never not only see our friends and loved ones ever again, but also that we would never see our homes again, nor the places that made Alderaan the jewel of the Galaxy."

Many of the survivors of Alderaan became friends after the destruction of their homeworld and joined the Rebellion that agitates for the restoration of the Galatic Republic.

Coulter, whose books include the bestseller How to Talk to a Rebel (If You Don't Have a Blaster Handy), argues in the new book that the survivors of Alderaan that she dubs "the Witches of Alderaan" wanted to blame Emperor Palpatine for not preventing the attack on their homeworld by the Death Star.

Asked by the Imperial News Service why she made such personal comments, Coulter said by a Holonet transmission that, "I am tired of victims being used as billboards for untenable Rebel political beliefs."

"A lot of Imperial Citizens have been seething over the inanities of these Rebels for some time," she added.

Former Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila said that Coulter's "shameless attack" on the surviors of Alderaan sparked disgust.

"Her bookselling antics and accompanying vulgarity deserve our deepest contempt," Mothma said in a statement. "Especially since my close friend Leia (Organa) hails from the world, and is one of the people Coulter specifically called a witch."

Coulter is known for a combative column after the Declaration of the New Order saying, "We should invade their planets, kill their leaders and their families, and convert them all to right-thinking Imperials." In one book, she wrote, "Even former Sepratists don't hate the Empire like Rebels do."

Her latest comments were quoted on many millions of audio and video Holonet feeds, and were debated on Holonet sites such as Alliance.rep. The front page headline of The Rebel Times was "Coulter the B---h."

The controversy does not appear to be doing any harm to sales of Coulter's book, which yesterday was the second-best seller of the day at online retailer GalaticBooks.emp.