Now We Know (Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America)

New Republic ^ | 17 June 2009 | Anne Applebaum

[AreaMan]

Apart from the obvious ax grinding against Coulter (she barely mentions Victor Navasky just cover herself) this is an interesting review of these books.

[mallardx]

Anne Applebaum is a spy working to undermine the United States of America, in an attempt to destroy the Constitution and allow Marxist usurpers unlimited power over formerly free people. She is a direct agent of misinformation, lies, and deceit. She and her allies will fall under the weight of their own lies and dishonesty.

[mbarker12474]

The left despises any form of American power and power projection. The left despises our wealth. It believes American power and American wealth are inherently bad, and that relative differences between America and other nations are indicators of our oppression, domineering, unfairness, arrogance, etc.

The left therefore is suckered by any tyrant (Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Arafat, Chavez, the U.N., Kennedy, Obama) claiming to offer liberation from oppressive America.

Coulter is right. Today’s core of political leftists differ from Stalin only in degree, not in kind. They differ not in principles, but in access to tanks.

[Oratam]

Basically, everything the right said about the left was and is correct. How does Applebaum deal with it? By saying none of these people were liberals because, in fact, they were Communists.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

[bassmaner]

bflr

[Don Corleone]

To be fair, which in Ann Coulter's case counts as an irony, she is not the only writer to have lost her sense of proportion,

To be fair...TREASON is TREASON You cannot PC it into anything else!

[astyanax]

Related article here:
Eric Alterman- the Left’s Most Dishonest Journalist-and the Controversy over “Spies.”

[ChessExpert]

In America's liberal press, such as the Washington Post, attacking anticommunists (McCarthy, Coulter) is an obligation but atacking obvious communist sympathizers is wrong. It's still a good article with good information.

In order to take timely decisions and actions, one must often proceed with imperfect and incomplete information. We now learn that communist infiltration was greater than we thought. I suspect that ten years from now, we may be able to demonstrate that it was even greater. All this hindsight, some sixty years after the fact, is rather pointless, except to show that McCarthy and HUAC were right and should have received more support.

[popdonnelly]

Good grief! Applebaum cherry picks her facts to make her favorite liberals appear innocent, and the people trying to catch spies appear disingenuous. What a collection of rationalizations! Even when facts are unambiguous, they won’t admit their favorite liberals and communists were spying.

She also resorts to the canard that, if you believe in a cause, spying is okay. So I could spy for Israel or Achmadinejad, as long as I was idealistic and believed in what they stood for? Same old left-liberal lack of objectivity.

[snowrip]

You forgot to add “MEGA BARFER”.

The compliance of the American left with their communist fellow travelers is well documented... by the KGB themselves. We are still translating tens of millions of pages of Cold War records from the KGB, whose influence went all the way up to Ted Kennedy.

The author is just another liberal apologist who is trying to assert her convoluted interpretation of reality over that of the reality established by fact.

[12Gauge687]

I agree with your assessment. My uncle, a former FBI agent, gave me the authors’ book on Venona, about the decrypts of Soviet messages. It was an excellent source of information and shows many on the left to be what Lenin termed “useful idiots.”

In China, many who were not Communists or even liked the Communists, became their “useful idiots.” Another uncle, a textile engineer who went back to China in 1950 to help modernize his father-in-law’s company, became a propaganda tool for Mao and the Communist Party. He was lauded as one who voluntarily came home to the Motherland. As time went on, things became worse for him because he refused to join the Communist Party and fought the seizure of the family’s textile factories in Shanghai by the government during the Great Leap Forward. He committed suicide after several “self-criticism” sessions during the Cultural Revolution.

[Cicero]

This may or may not be a good review, but I’m afraid that the introductory remarks are so vile and stupid it’s impossible to read any further. This woman is an ignoramus, ergo, nothing she says can be trusted.

[listenhillary]

Coulter and her ilk want modern liberals to be identified with the CPUSA: Hiss = Obama.

[VR-21]

"Too many people have drained this particular chapter of history of interest by manipulating it for partisan purposes--as, once upon a time, Senator McCarthy did."

That statement would be far more applicable to the Tydings Panel than to Joe McCarthy. The reviewer, while reluctantly admitting facts that have become undeniable still clings to the demonization of McCarthy. I believe that history will continue to vindicate him.

[AreaMan]

hat statement would be far more applicable to the Tydings Panel than to Joe McCarthy. The reviewer, while reluctantly admitting facts that have become undeniable still clings to the demonization of McCarthy....

I love it. What she is really saying is
,"Even though it seems McCarthy was right...I still want to use his name as a slur"

[Jeff Chandler]

"Even though it seems McCarthy was right...I still want to use his name as a slur"

[AreaMan]

Ok....thanks for the big print but I don't need reading glasses yet.

Or are you trying to say that you agree with my assessment?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

This woman is a blathering moron.

[AreaMan]

This woman is a blathering moron.

In other words...an "intellectual."

Only an "intellectual" can read facts and still twist them to say the opposite of what they really mean.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Actually it was more of an emotional reponse.

Like when your dog poops on the carpet. ;)