News Intelligence Analysis
The New, Unabashed McCarthyism:
A Review of Treason: Liberal
Treachery From The Cold War To The War On Terrorism
Originally published by Findlaw.com
By MARK S. ZAID
Senator Joseph McCarthy, a patriotic
hero? Liberals all treasonous villains? First Lady, now Senator,
Hillary Clinton's cries of a "right wing conspiracy,"
move over. That one statement for which Senator Clinton has been
vilified for time immemorial by conservatives pales in comparison
to the liberal conspiracy to betray the United States that is
identified by Ann Coulter in her latest political diatribe, Treason:
Liberal Treachery From The Cold War To The War On Terrorism.
Coulter's new book asserts that liberals have been wrong on
every foreign policy issue for the last fifty years, and that
at least since the start of the Cold War they have "contained,
appeased, and retreated, often sacrificing America's best interests
and security." Her re-examination of the lives of Senator
Joseph McCarthy, Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss and every Democratic
president since Truman will shock anyone to the left of Attila
the Hun.
Among her astonishing conclusions:
Coulter's Failure to Define The Straw Man She Attacks
Who are these evil liberals, exactly? In her book, Coulter
declines to provide a definition or distinguish liberals from
"the Left". In televised appearances Coulter has boasted
clearly that liberals are the Democratic Party and its members,
every single one of them. Coulter's theory, therefore, runs into
some historical anomalies.
For example, both Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond, two darlings
of the Republican Party, were Democrats until 1962 and 1964,
respectively - well into the Cold War period she discusses. Even
ardent Republican Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations, was a Democrat until late into the Carter
Administration.
Glorifying Senator Joseph McCarthy's Abuses
Coulter's analysis - some would deem it revisionist history
- of Senator McCarthy and his escapades will be startling to
most. She contends, amazingly, that "[t]he myth of 'McCarthyism'
is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. The portrayal of
Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent
lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism."
As Coulter announced to millions on Good Morning America,
"I really just have to ask people to hit the 'delete' button
on everything you think you know about McCarthy, because it was
a huge liberal myth. It was created to, to hide the left's collaboration
with a regime as evil as the Nazis."
Apparently Coulter believes with all her heart that "[w]hat
the country needed was Joe McCarthy." Such a comment seems
akin to the now-infamous misstatement of former Senator Majority
Leader Trent Lott when he suggested the nation would have been
better off had it elected segregationist Senator Thurmond (by
the way, then still a Democrat) president in 1948.
Coulter claims vast evidence supports her conclusion that
McCarthy was right on the mark. She cites to the 1995 release
of the Vernona papers, which were created through a top secret
U.S. Signals Intelligence effort to collect and decrypt the text
of Soviet KGB and GRU messages from 1943 to 1980.
Indeed, the Vernona messages do confirm that Soviet spies
operated in the United States, as Senator McCarthy decried. But
many respected historians who have researched the documents,
such as Professor Athan Theoharis, have pointed out that the
information can also be read to seriously undermine the contention
that the "red scare" of the 1940s and 50s invigorated
by Senator McCarthy (and now Coulter) was justified.
According to Theoharis's book Chasing Spies: How the FBI
Failed in Counterintelligence But Promoted the Politics of McCarthyism
in the Cold War Years, Vernona reveals that the government's
culture of suspicion and blacklists helped fuel McCarthyism's
beliefs rather than vindicate his allegations.
Criticism of Coulter and her Book Abound
Coulter's book endlessly rambles and repeats itself, and continually
makes illogical leaps and bounds. Her writing is wearying to
both the eyes and mind of any reader not possessed by the same
vitriolic hatred of these undefined liberals. She appears to
operate on the principle that a falsehood or argument repeated
often enough will ultimately be accepted as the truth.
Criticism of Coulter's book has been widespread among book
reviews and editorials. In fact, it extends beyond the contents
of her book and to her personally, many of which might be considered
unfair or certainly irrelevant. Among them: "Lethally blond,"
(David Carr in The New York Times); a "right-wing
telebimbo," (Alex Beam of the Boston Globe); a "sex
kitten" with "long, blond peekaboo hair" and "Joe
McCarthy in a little black dress" (Kevin Horrigan of the
St. Louis Post Dispatch); and "a rail-thin, chain-smoking,
hard-drinking, big-eyed leggy blonde who winkingly serves up
X-rated ideological smut on liberals." (Sam Tanenhaus in
Slate).
To be fair, Coulter, who sprung to public fame in 1996 as
a conservative MSNBC legal pundit, is no intellectual lightweight.
A former federal judicial law clerk, congressional staffer for
Senator Spencer Abraham and constitutional attorney, Coulter
was even named in a controversial article as one of the top 100
public intellectuals in 2001, by respected federal jurist Richard
Posner.
Although Coulter does identify many issues deserving of legitimate
debate and historical scholarship, this book is evidence of neither.
Instead of a sound, reasoned discussion of the issues, there
is largely only anger and rhetoric.
Coulter's Baleful and Growing Influence
Her controversial writings have caused many to seriously question
whether she is a positive or negative influence within the Republican
Party. Although even Conservative intellectuals have denounced
her book, there is no mistaking her growing influence. She continues
to inspire many on the Right - particularly young women who see
Coulter as a dynamic leadership figure, one with independence
and high-profile power, in an organization where they are a definite
minority.
It is hard to say what is scarier, the text within Coulter's
book or that those in the United States are actually buying and
reading it as a serious work. Ironically, Coulter attacks free
speech as the premise for "those canny liberals ... to justify
their wacko ideas, and "a one-way ratchet for traitors."
Of course, the First Amendment seems to work well for both liberals
and conservatives, including and especially Coulter herself who
is certainly smiling all the way down to her bank to deposit
her many royalty checks.
Copyright © 1994-2003 FindLaw
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