A Conspiracy So Vast: Meet Ann Coulter, the Maureen Dowd of the conservatives

Opinion Journal ^ | 07/14/03 | DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

[nopardons]

Please allow me to get you up to speed.

First, Michael Moore and Ann Colture have about as much in common, as do Stalin and President Bush.

Now, just how much do you actually know about : 1) the Venona Papers 2) Commies and fellow travellers, who worked in OUR government during FDR's and Harry Truman's presidencies 3)how many books about those times have you read and if any, who wrote them 4) have you ever seen the Army-McCarthy Hearings 5)do you believe the following people were Commies...Alger Hiss and the Rosenburgs ?

Have you read " TREASON " ?

Do you believe that Michael Moore's books containe correct, true, factual information about guns ? If not, then why did you equate him and his pathetic tripe about guns/gun owners with the historically proven FACTS stated by Ann, in her new book ?

Bomb throwing, in the way you intend it, is not exactly what Ann has done in " TREASON ".

[sinkspur]

I have read the book and McCarthy is used as an axample of how effective the left is on demonizing people who point out that they (The Left) don't have what it takes to defend America.

She could have picked someone besides Joe McCarthy.

President Dwight Eisenhower thought McCarthy was a swashbuckling, grandstanding lunatic, for Christ's sake!

And, he was.

I've read plenty on McCarthy and, while he was right about Communists in the government, he cast his net too wide, and damaged a lot of innocent people.

I also question the sanity of ANYBODY who would defend the Waffen SS in 1952, seven years after they were proven to be the executioners of over 6 million European Jews, Poles, and others.

[Bernard Marx]

I get the feeling that lots of folks on this thread haven't read Dorothy. You really ought to.

I've read a lot of Rabinowitz but the shallowness of her attack on Coulter's book puzzles me. It seems almost reflexive, as if she's not really able to mount an in-depth intellectual assessment of Coulter's arguments because of ingrained prejudices against McCarthy. The fact that she totally ignores Venona and its implications is damning as far as I'm concerned.

I wonder...have you actually read "Treason" or are you basing your criticisms on reviews like Andrew Sullivan's and hearsay?

[justshutupandtakeit]

There was no reason such unproven allegations would be in a serious book about another subject entirely. I would be surprised if there is anything in those allegations.

[Publius6961]

and, dismal to note today, that the universities which were once hotbeds of opposition to McCarthy are now little worlds of their own, where political censorship, speech codes and other ideologically driven assaults on freedom are the accepted order of things.

Wow.
What a smorgasbord of of whining/apologism.
But this one takes the cake.

The hoped for inference here is that all these ills are the continuing result of the "McCarthy mentality", whereas the direct opposite is the case: the same pink slime that McCarthy was looking under rocks for are the very ones who have made the continuing Orwellian assaults on freedom and dissent mandatory.

[Lancey Howard]

Those who are so blinded by their hero worship of Coulter that they call Rabinowitz liberal scum are certainly worthy of DU, since you clearly don't have a clue that Rabinowitz is a true conservative.

I admit I am not very familiar with Dorothy Rabinowitz, although I have certainly seen her name bandied about and read the occasional column over the years. But if you say she is a good conservative, I'll take your word for it.

So I can presume, then, that Rabinowitz had a bad hair day or maybe a little too much to drink the day she wrote this snide hatchet job on Coulter? Hey, eveybody screws up once in a while.

[MaxPlus305]

Yes, Michael Moore's film "Columbine" contained facts. The problem was the context in which they were said or in the way he tried to skew them. And also, all the other facts that he left out. I won't claim that Coulter skewed things...but for now, it's enough of a charge that she left some major relevant facts out.

I haven't read all of Ann's books, but I've read all the excerpts, most of the columns that she derives the book from, and seen her TV appearances. What she engages in does seem to be the typical definition of bomb-throwing.

And before anyone says, "Oh you haven't read her book you are in no position to have any opinion"...how many of you have bought Hillary's trash book before criticizing it? I'm not going to claim to be an authority on "Treason", but this much I know for sure:

1) Coulter believes that McCarthy was wrongly demonized by history.

2) Coulter conveninently leaves out his well-known defense of Nazi murderers.

[nopardons]

What sounds like propaganda , is what YOU are writing !

Look, "TREASON" is NOT a biography about McCarthy's entire life; nor even most of it. Does Ann talk about his war record in the military ? I don't know, as I haven't read the book. Have YOU read the entire book ?

Talking about his " defense of Nazis " and I admit to NOT knowing about this, until you posted it, has NO relivance to the topic of her book; none, zilch, nada, zero ! This senseless, shabby crusade you're now on is beneath you.

[DPB101]

The antisemitism card is being played against Ann Coulter.

Strawman. Who said anything about Jews on this thread?

Me, I guess.

If you're automatically assuming that Buchanan is anti-semitic, well, that's your problem, isn't it?

I don't believe he is. He is simply defending his faith as Jews castigate (rightly so) those who claim Trotsky, Berman, Kaganovich, Zinoviev, Rappaport and other mass murderers are typical of the Jewish faith.

The key to all this is the army lab at Ft. Monmouth. That is what had everyone (including Ike) so upset. Dozens of suspected spies were in that facility and nobody was doing a thing about it. McCarthy was incensed. But he knew almost all of those suspected were Jewish and had gone to City College with Julius Rosenberg. That is why Roy Cohen was hired. But it didn't do any good. The ADL had the spies lawyered up and the TV on their side.

[nopardons]

Oh, for crying out loud...don't cherrypick my posts !

[wireplay]

What's funny is that I reread the commentary and I don't believe that Dorothy is reviewing or commenting on the whole work but just the McCarthy piece. Perhaps it is just to damage the book through the one area...Ann's failure to attack McCarthy for what he was...a huckster who happened to have some truth.

Got to find time to read the book...

[Publius6961]

Dorothy Rabinowitz is a very sober and stalwart conservative writer who deserves more than your your utter contempt in this instance.Read it again :)

Damn!
She fell off the wagon again.
Time to dust off the old 12-step program again.
(one can hope)

[MaxPlus305]

BTW, I don't think Coulter is evil or should be booted from the Republican party. I'm just tired of the "You're either with Ann or you're against America" attitude that's prevalent on this board. You don't think she needed to include that Nazi incident when defending McCarthy? Fine. But I don't like that kind of whitewashing, so excuse me if I don't include Ann on my list of books to buy.

[rmlew]

According to McCarthy and Taft, the Germans were tortured into making contradictory confessions. The Soviet Judges ignored all contradiction.
Frankly, I believe that all members of the SS should have been hanged. However, they should have been hanged for those crimes they did committ not those of others.
Many American POWs were killed when they tried to escape during a firefight. Others were hered together and gunned down.
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:snNLb5QRYU4J:www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/MalmedyMassacre02.html+%22Malmedy+Massacre%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
It is important to differentiate who did what when.

I do thing it was indicative of McCarthy's poor judgement that he wasted political capital on Waffen SS.
On the other hand, McCarthy was no anti-Semite. He worked with and Socialized with Jews.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=2386

[nopardons]

Yes, I know, sink lifted only a tiny part of my reply.

[Bobsat]

Think it through.

The Nazis executed American POWs in outrageous violation of every tenet of civilization we believe in.

Was there ever any doubt that, when caught, those criminals would be or were treated with extreme prejudice -- also in violation of the Geneva Convention and those tenets of civilization we uphold and respect?

Does anger and revenge justify our mistreatment of the German prisoners?

No. It just explains it. Seems like that was Joe's point.

He wasn't championing the Nazi atrocities. He was shedding light on our own vengeful behavior. Somebody had to do it.

[drjimmy]

So I can presume, then, that Rabinowitz had a bad hair day or maybe a little too much to drink the day she wrote this snide hatchet job on Coulter? Hey, eveybody screws up once in a while.
I guess we can presume the same about you because of your snide hatchet job on Rabinowitz.

[nopardons]

I'm saying that some people here are being about as acurate as those who congregate on DU. And, Dorothy, in this article, smears Ann as well as Joe. Did you read the article ?

[Mo1]

She also thanks her publisher for his bravery--a suggestion that it took courage to publish this work. Here we are, only up to the acknowledgments page, and already enjoying a laugh.

I'm gonna take a guess that Dorthy doesn't like Ann much huh?

[hoosiermama]

I concur. What bothers me the mosts is the review is on only the first third of the book, and she misses the point of the book. Something is wrong. She certainly is not up to par.