Posted on 06/25/2003 4:41:33 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Appalled by Ann Coulter's suggestion in a new book that Senator Joseph McCarthy was largely correct about the infiltration of the U.S. government by those sympathetic to communist tyranny and some who spied for the Soviet Union, on Tuesday's Good Morning America Diane Sawyer suggested that Coulter's historic perspective means that she'd want anyone opposed to war in Iraq to lose their job since, to Sawyer, McCarthy promoted the idea of "thought crime."
Sawyer argued to Coulter: "Extrapolating to today, do you think there should be hearings on Capitol Hill for the people who were critical of the war in Iraq? Do you think that they should be hauled up and then banned from their jobs if they're proven to have been deeply critical of the war with Iraq?"
The June 24 Good Morning America brought Coulter aboard during its last half hour, just past 8:30am, matching NBC's Today which did not air its interview with Coulter about her previous book, Slander, until its last half hour, after 9:30am.
The June 25, 2002 CyberAlert related: Katie Couric argued Wednesday morning with author Ann Coulter who accurately quoted Couric as having opened Today in 1999 by trumpeting: "The Gipper was an airhead. That's one of the conclusions of a new biography of Ronald Reagan..." Couric took umbrage: "I'm just curious why you took it so out of context?" But Couric didn't interview the author, Edmund Morris, until two days later. Couric insisted that Today opened with the "airhead" insult just once. In fact, they did it two days in a row. See: Cyberalerts
Fast forward to Tuesday morning of this week, and Sawyer set up Coulter, as transcribed by MRC analyst Jessica Anderson: "Ann Coulter, such a familiar figure, such a strong voice, such a flame thrower she is, and of course, so successful. You'll remember that she recently had a book that made it to the top of The New York Times best-seller list and it was called 'Slander.' Well, she is back now with another new book about what she calls liberal lies against the American right. It's a book called 'Treason,' it takes it up a notch, accusing liberals of siding with America's enemies for 50 years. It is called, as we said, 'Treason.' Ann, treason! Treason, punishable by death? Treason?!"
Coulter: "Yeah, you switched the subtitles of my last book and this book. This one's about treachery, the last one was about lies...."
Coulter proceeded to explain how decrypted Soviet cables released in 1995 showed how there were communist agents inside the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.
Sawyer pounced: "Let me go to a couple of things, though. One of your big arguments is that McCarthy basically was right, and that in fact, he helped defend the country in a major way. Do you think, extrapolating to today, do you think there should be hearings on Capitol Hill for the people who were critical of the war in Iraq? Do you think that they should be hauled up and then banned from their jobs if they're proven to have been deeply critical of the war with Iraq?"
Coulter: "That misunderstands what McCarthy did and that is going to be probably the most shocking part of the book. I really just have to ask people to hit the delete button on everything you think you know about McCarthy because it is a huge liberal myth. It was created to hide the left's collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis. McCarthy's scope was far more limited than most people think. He was trying to get security risks, loyalty risks out of the government. As we now know, hundreds of spies for Joseph Stalin were working for the administrations of Roosevelt and Truman. That is a fact."
Sawyer: "Spies are one thing. There was also, in the McCarthy era, the issue of thought crime."
Coulter: "Not from Joe McCarthy. That's part of the myth about McCarthy."
Sawyer: "But it was the Republicans who censured him. His own party censured him."
Coulter: "And that same United States Senate did not censure Ken Starr. I wouldn't go too much by that. Did not censure Bill Clinton, excuse me."
Sawyer then played the famous clip from a McCarthy hearing in which Army lawyer Joseph Welsh demanded: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
Sawyer pressed Coulter: "Decency. Was it a violation of decency?"
Coulter suggested the public has a skewed view of McCarthy since most have only seen examples of people attacking him and not the evidence which supported his allegations.
Sawyer: "Alright, Ann Coulter. As we said, if you want your veins to be bulging, your pulse to be pounding and you really want to read something provocative, it is her book and it is 'Treason.' It is out today."
ABC News has posted an excerpt from Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, published by Random House's Crown division: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Books/GMA030624Coulter_Treason.html
For Coulter's own Web page: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Books/GMA030624Coulter_Treason.html
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaresearch.org ...
On another thread today, there was a report of Ann appearing on ABC's "The View," and one of the obnoxous bitties on that show asked Ann if she'd ever seen two women having sex. Ann shot back, "Not since Katie interviewed Hillary."
And she's not very good at that, either.
Is that anything like "hate crimes" where if you commit a crime, you should be punished extra if you thought something bad about your victim's race/sex/sexual prefference? Maybe Dianne can explain the difference to us unwashed masses out here in fly-over country.
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Close, but not quite.
The question wasn't whether she'd ever seen two women having sex but rather if she'd seen two women get it on. Admittedly, there was a lot of innuendo(sp?) but those weren't the words that were used.
Interesting note is its backcover reviews:
"A great deal of research supports Ms. Coulter's wisecracks."~~New York Times
A backhanded compliment if ever I heard one.
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