Ann Coulter, Saucy Siren Of The Right, Sounds Off

The Day.com ^ | Published on 10/19/2003 | By FRAZIER MOORE

[Forgiven_Sinner]

In her book “Treason,” Ann Coulter lionizes Joseph McCarthy, the 1950s Wisconsin senator, for his holy war against Communist spies in the United States.

Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism By Ann Coulter Crown Forum, $26.95

Ann Coulter rules as the saucy, blond siren of the Right.

Lashing out at all things liberal and Democrat (labels she uses interchangeably), she treats conservative Republicans to a spicy brand of reassurance that has leveraged her into multimedia stardom with talk-TV appearances, a syndicated column and big-selling books with shrill titles.

A year after her successful “Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right,” Coulter carries on with “Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.” The book already has spent 12 weeks on The New York Times list of best sellers, most recently in seventh place.

But despite bubbling sales and wells of success, Coulter has been faulted for research that is routinely sloppy and facts that are contrived.

“She builds a case on half-truths,” declares Ronald Radosh, a historian and author whom Coulter salutes as a fellow conservative.

“She's a cultural phenomenon,” concedes Joe Conason, a liberal columnist with his own best seller, “Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth.” He adds, “I wouldn't characterize what she puts forward as ideas. They're more in the nature of primitive emotions.”

Bring it on, Coulter responds.

“There are people who would scream bloody murder if I wrote, ‘It's a lovely day outside,”' she says with a satisfied look: People screaming bloody murder about her is great for business.

Continuing to do great business, “Treason” aims to spring Joseph McCarthy from history's gulag as “a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives,” Coulter sums up.

Seizing quite the opposite position, her book lionizes the 1950s Wisconsin senator for his holy war against Communist spies in the United States, a crusade she argues was done in by the soft-on-commies Democratic Party, which has since compounded the outrage by demonizing McCarthy with its “hegemonic control of the dissemination of information and historical fact,” she says between bites of a turkey club.

Writing the book was a mad scramble, Coulter reports during a recent lunch interview. She began “Treason” only last October, “but I worked pretty hard,” she says. “I cut down on TV (appearances). I worked every Friday and Saturday night.”

Veteran journalist and commentator M. Stanton Evans, who is writing a book on the McCarthy era, shared some of his extensive research with Coulter and “went over her manuscript on the McCarthy chapters,” he says. “I can vouch for the facts. Her interpretations are obviously hers. They're obviously meant to be provocative.”

Indeed, Coulter's McCarthy makeover only sets the stage for her wildly provocative main theme: Democrats, always rooting against America, are “the Treason Party,” she explains with throaty conviction.

Democrats have “an outrageous history of shame,” she says, “and they've brushed it all under the rug,” racking up a shameful record that persists to present-day Iraq, where the Democrats, she claims, are hoping for America's comeuppance.

So the broad purpose of “Treason,” says Coulter, “is to alert people, to send out flare lights: Warning, warning! Democrats can't be trusted with national security!”

It's all very simple.

In Coulter's America, everything, it seems, is simple. She reigns over a bipolar realm of either right or wrong; love or hate; smart or idiotic; men or — a Coulter favorite — “girly boys,” a distinction that in her book yields such questions as the language-garbling “Why are liberals so loath of positive testosterone?” as well as “Why can't liberals let men defend the country?” (By men, she means Republicans.)

“Everything isn't black and white,” counters historian Radosh, who has long contended that Communist spies posed an internal threat after World War II. Radosh draws the line at canonizing McCarthy for his blacklisting campaign to flush them out. “But the people who respond to her are people who already agree with her, and they don't want any nuance.”

Just mention nuance to Coulter and she scoffs.

“As opposed to spending 50 years portraying McCarthy as a Nazi?” she says with a scornful laugh. “THAT's a very nuanced portrait! I think it's just meaningless blather, this nuanced business.”

This nuanced business only muddies the issue, she insists, whereas generalizations are, in her view, a simple, get-to-the-heart-of-it way to make a point.

For example: “Gen-er-al-ly,” she says with snide accentuation, “it's not good to play in traffic. Gen-er-al-ly, when your gut feels a certain way, you better hightail it to the bathroom or you'll be wetting your pants.”

But is every registered Democrat automatically liberal, anti-American, godless, a liar and a “girly boy” — plus guilty of treason? That's a generalization Coulter all but states outright in her book, but in the interview has trouble defending.

“Don't worry,” she wants every Democrat to know. “The country doesn't prosecute for treason anymore. If they didn't prosecute Jane Fonda (for visiting the enemy during the Vietnam War), there's no worries there.”

She is lunching at an open-air Upper East Side bistro near the apartment she rents in Manhattan. (Coulter, who is single, makes her primary residence in Miami Beach, Fla. — “lots of Cubans,” she airily explains.)

Though known for her sexy garb (on the cover of “Treason” her twiggy form is sheathed in a sleek black gown), she is dressed down in white jeans and gray T-shirt. She just finished her column. She has hours of radio interviews scheduled later. It's a sunny, breezy day and life is sweet. The only cloud on her horizon, says Coulter, bright-eyed and full of herself, is insufficient time to savor her success.

At 41, Coulter has traveled a well-plotted road from her comfy Republican upbringing in New Canaan to Cornell University in upstate New York, then law school at the University of Michigan.

She worked for the Center for Individual Rights, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative public policy group, then took a job with Spencer Abraham, the current Energy Secretary who then was a U.S. senator from Michigan.

In the mid-1990s, she signed onto a project to investigate alleged wrongdoings by President and Mrs. Clinton, which in 1998 led to “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton,” Coulter's first best seller.

From there, it was a short step to punditry, where she was well-served by her looks and sharp tongue, winning further notoriety after being fired by MSNBC and National Review Online for her inflammatory remarks.

[truthandjustice1]

"evalations."

Not trying to be picky, but in the Navy it was spelled "evaluations". But then again, the Marines were just different.

[rohry]

"Are you laughing too much to explain why the Senate condemned Senator McCarthy?"

Read the book. The 8th grader got his "facts" from Expedia or some other soure which is edited and put together by liberals. His "facts" are wrong. His "facts" are credible to you because all you want to focus on is the fact that his enemies took him down and orchestrated a censure.

I've never seen anyone comment so much on a book that he hadn't read. By the way, the vast majority of the book isn't even about Senator McCarthy!

[PGalt]

"Liberals hate Ann Coulter because she is *BEAUTIFUL* and *INTELLIGENT*."

...AND...

...because she tells the truth about them in no-nonsense, unequivocal terms. She is totally in-your-face. I wish more conservative men at the national level were as tough.

10 posted on 10/19/2003 4:10 PM EDT by WorkingClassFilth

Agree 100% Mr. Filth

[RatSlayer]

"BTW, does the fact that JFK abstained from voting on the censure at all?"

Should have been

BTW, does the fact that JFK abstained from voting on the censure BOTHER YOU at all?

I hate it when my brain gets ahead of my fingers and I skip part of the sentence.

[gcruse]

Saucy Siren Of The Right

Heh.  More like Emaciated Emasculator, IYAM.  ;)

[lady lawyer]

what makes you think she lacks character?

[Semper]

Focusing on a typing error seems somewhat petty. Do you really think I didn't know how to spell "evaluations"?

[jaugust]

McCarthy's peers happen to be POLITICIANS. It seems you lend more credibility to these POLITICIANS than they deserve. They censured McCarthy because, politically, they HAD to.

And has been recently discovered, McCarthy turned out to be right afterall as more and more documents from the former Soviet KGB are being uncovered showing Communist activities taking place in the US post WWII in some of the highest positions in government.

And McCarthy did not INITIATE any of this. ALL of the initial investigations of possible CP activity was done by HUAC.

[Semper]

I'll give you something to research - it may give you an insight to my dislike for Senator McCarthy. Try looking up the term "Tailgunner Joe". That was the title given McCarthy after he claimed to have won the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) as an aircraft gunner during WWII. The fact was that he did not come close to winning a FDC - it was a complete fabrication. Someone who lies about combat service is not worth spit and that character flaw caught up to him. McCarthy might have have had the right message but he was really the wrong messenger.

[ladyinred]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: Forgiven_Sinner Liberals hate Ann Coulter because she is *BEAUTIFUL* and *INTELLIGENT*.

And because she tells the truth about them! BTW: So does Laura Ingraham in her new book, "Shutup and Sing"

[Semper]

They censured McCarthy because, politically, they HAD to.

How do you reach that conclusion? That particular Senate action had only been taken 3 times in history - not a normal political occurance. What made it a requirement?

See my post #149.

[Fifth Business]

But is every registered Democrat automatically liberal, anti-American, godless, a liar and a “girly boy” — plus guilty of treason?

No. Just a disproportionate number.

[Semper]

"Being right is not enough" is very much demonstrated by McCarthy. He was right about communist infestation in our government but his actions were counter-productive. His motive was self-promotion (a motive close to the heart of Ann Coulter) and the result was condemnation by his peers in the Senate and inaction regarding the problem he exposed.

[FreedomPoster]

My understanding is that McCarthy was an intelligence officer, who, though he didn't have to, volunteered to fly a few missions as tail gunner, and flew on around twelve.

So I guess you've seen his military records to know that he didn't receive the DFC? Or are you assuming that the Leftist Democrat establishment of the day, that was closing ranks against some painful truths that McCarthy was uncovering, was telling the truth about his military record?

[RatSlayer]

Mr Peabody said:

"Rat, I was amused that his link was from an 8th grader's homework assignment. Seriously, /i don't have a dog in this fight. I haven't read Ann's book. I just want to know who was hurt and did they have a communist background. "

I didn't read his link. I'll go back and do that. If he thought there were some pursuasive arguements in the link, I would have hoped he would have quoted them here so that we could deal with them, one by one.

But on to your issue. I think you probably realize that this situation was extremely complex. They were trying to deal with the issues of what constitutes a security threat and how do you go about investigating them.

This goes far beyond the issue of whether someone had a communist background or not. For a modern day example, consider a missle launch operator who fails to turn the launch key during an exercise. He would be considered a security risk these days and would be reassigned at the least and court marshalled at the worst. Would it hurt his career? Yes.

Were they some people innocent people that were hurt. I am sure there were, Although I can't name any. Unfortunately, this is one of the downsides of taking a government job. You have to expect to have your background checked and if anything suspicuous comes up you might get hurt.

The best I can tell, the worst that happened to most of the people that were investigated is that they were reassigned to positions where security was not concerned. This obviously had some impact on their career. But who's to say how much? I think a few people resigned instead, but that's their choice. I think some fought back through the labor boards and were reinstated.

Were they communists? Not to criminal court standards of evidence. Heck, probably not to civil court standards. But, is this even relevant? They weren't being sentenced to jail. They were just being told that you can't work in this job because we think you might do something to harm the USA. Always keep in mind that they were looking for any security risks not just communists.

Unfortunately, it is impossible not to hurt people in this situation. But the error should be on the side of safety for the USA, since the damage to the people involved (at least by the Senate hearings) was minimal.

You should be very careful when you read stories of all the people hurt by McCarthy. The liberals like to play this game where everything that HUAC did is blamed on McCarthy. But, as Ann mentions, HUAC was the HOUSE not the Senate and Joe was a SENATOR.

This has gotten longer than I intended.
So Finally, it can be argued that McCarthy and his staff suffered far worst than any of the people that they investigated.

Let me know if you would like me to explain something further.

[jaugust]

The conclusion is based on the fact that there was a Democratic majority in the Senate and they opposed any efforts to investigate Communist infiltration in high government positions including the State Department.

In her book, Coulter does agree with you that McCarthy was perhaps the wrong messenger with the right message. He was merely doing what his "peers" in the Senate should have been doing but were too cowardly to do so.

As for his alleged military "record" his fight against Communist operatives in the US government is far more important than whether or not he did win the DFC for legitimate reasons. It is a far worse thing that Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and many within the Democratic Party embraced those whose idealogy we were fighting against.

[Joe_October]

There still IS a communist threat in this country. It is very much alive and well despite the eventual demise of communism every time it's been tried.

I agree with you but I wonder why? Communism has been proven over and over again that it doesn't work. Did the traitors who were working to overthrow the US (which we know were here) create a social movement that lives on after their destruction?

There is a certain arrogance in people who think communism/socialism/marxism is great. They all want to run it. That's the funny thing. Each votes to put it in place thinking they will be in charge. They will be the first that get marched to the gulags.

Why people fight for things against their interests is beyond me.