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Ann Coulter, Saucy Siren Of The Right, Sounds Off
The Day.com ^ | Published on 10/19/2003 | By FRAZIER MOORE

Posted on 10/19/2003 12:57:49 PM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anncoulter; bookreview; treason
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To: Semper
Read the book: Treason. You have been duped by the liberal mediots regarding McCarthy. Nothing you dig up from the internet is going to help you here. Read Ann's book.
181 posted on 10/19/2003 10:32:27 PM PDT by AFPhys (((PRAYING for: President Bush & advisors, troops & families, Americans)))
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To: Semper
Semper said:

"No. You don't get a DFC for "flying enought missions" (that would be an Air Medal). You get a DFC for demonstrating uncommon courage in air combat. (Which tailgunner Joe did not do.) "

Sorry, but your wrong on this. Soon after VJ day the DOD offered all airmen who flew a certain number of combat missions a DFC. Combat missions were defined as any mission where enemy fire was a possiblility.

It is my opinion that this was done because the attrition rate in the air corps was so high (over 25%) that they decided anyone who survuced a certain number of missions deserved medals.

Unfortunately 50 years of smears against Joe has buried this little tidbit of information, so few people now know it.

Your obviously not going to believe my word or Ann's, so you'll have to wait for me get the book from the library that I need for the cite.

Semper said:

"Why you would equate your friend's dad accepting an award (which he most likely earned) with Joe McCarthy claiming credit for an award which he certainly did not earn is odd."

No it's not odd. You just weren't willing to take my word that I know why my friend's dad was awarded his DFC. I happen to know that he only took fire in one instance. It was from a 109 that he subsequently shot down. Hardly the stuff of heroism. Hundreds of other gunners has more immpressive combat records.

Semper said:

"What evidence was there that your friend's dad made up that story to help him get elected to public office? "

You misread something here. The politcal story concerns McCarthy not my friend's dad. Joe's opponent in a political race tried to use this smear against McCarthy, because Joe's opponent never served and thus needed some way to take the sheen from Joe's service.

BTW, if you think peer reviews are so hot and more to be trusted, then why is it you believe the Senate that censured Joe, but not the officers that reviewed Joe's record and awarded him a DFC? Which is it? Peer reviews bad or peer reviews don't mean squat?
182 posted on 10/19/2003 10:41:19 PM PDT by RatSlayer
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To: AFPhys
You have been duped by the liberal mediots regarding McCarthy. Nothing you dig up from the internet is going to help you here.

Even if it is the truth? How about you doing some serious research on McCarthy. Watch some video of him and see what kind of man he was. When I was in school, he was on TV and my impression was that he was not someone I would trust. I still believe that but it is based upon more than just an impression.

183 posted on 10/19/2003 10:50:16 PM PDT by Semper
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To: Pukin Dog
She is practically transparent right now. 30 pounds would not make Coulter fat, it would make her visible.

While I like a few more curves as well, some people are just naturally thin. For her gaining thirty pounds would not be healthy. She's not gaunt, just thin. I doubt if you'd like the way she looked if she did gain thirty pounds, since most of it wouldn't be in the "right" places, most likly. Five or ten maybe, would fill her out a little, but she's fine the way she is as well. She's pretty, and more importantly she's both savy and smart. All that and you wnat pnuematic too?

184 posted on 10/20/2003 1:03:45 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: Forgiven_Sinner
but you get the feeling he's dying to nail her

I got the feeling he'd prefer her brother.

185 posted on 10/20/2003 1:16:35 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: Semper
"When I was in school, he was on TV and my impression was that he was not someone I would trust. I still believe that but it is based upon more than just an impression."

Could your impression have been in any way affected by those censure hearings where the media broke into vigorous applause every time he was condemned? Do you think there is no way that the media APPLAUDING throughout the entire censure proceeding (read: show trial) might have had any effect on his "peer review"?

By the way, even as broken as he was at the end, McCarthy still had an impressively large and respectful funeral (I lack the exact figures - read Ann's book). His death was mourned by many, even if it only received silence or smears in the mainstream press. That's the kind of peer review I care about, not what the media thought and not what a bunch of senators absolutely terrified by a relentlessly applauding media voted for.

Qwinn
186 posted on 10/20/2003 1:34:34 AM PDT by Qwinn
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To: Semper
Awarding of medals:
Lyndon Johnson "earning" the Silver Star was far more heinous than any misapplication in McCarthy's case. This link has the story: http://www.b-26marauderarchive.org/MS/MS1709/MS1709.htm
187 posted on 10/20/2003 3:29:47 AM PDT by NewRomeTacitus (As you were.)
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To: Semper
McCarty did no service to anti-Communism in that he managed to prosecute ZERO communists;

Last I checked, it isn't the business of the United States Senate to prosecute anyone. That's an executive branch responsibility, and what McCarty was trying to do was show was expecting them to do that at the time was like expecting the fox to zealously guard the chickens.

188 posted on 10/20/2003 9:45:49 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: truthandjustice1
Wait, wasn't Colin Powell a Bush appointment? Is he a puke, too? Does that make Bush a puke? Just wondering

Powell is not "entrenched", he serves at the pleasure of the President. When a new President comes in, Powell will go, if not before. The pukes are civil servants and are very difficult to get rid of, hence they are "entrenched", more or less.

189 posted on 10/20/2003 9:57:58 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: truthandjustice1
Clinton was never fully impeached by Congress

But he was "fully impeached". The fact that Senate refused to even look at any evidence, and did not convict him and remove him from office in that proceeding that passed for a "trial", does not change the fact that Billy Jeff may be forever referred to as "The Impeached One".

190 posted on 10/20/2003 10:00:59 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: El Gato
On this we agree. I hope history books reflect this as well.
191 posted on 10/20/2003 10:03:24 AM PDT by truthandjustice1
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To: truthandjustice1
The Senate voted not to impeach Clinton.

The Senate voted not to *convict* him of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors. The House had already *impeached* his sorry hide. It should have been for "Treason and Bribery" as well as "Other High Crimes and Misdomeanors".

See US Constitution, Art I sections 2 and 3, and also Art II section 4.

192 posted on 10/20/2003 10:11:25 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: Forgiven_Sinner
Amusing post!

“Everything isn't black and white,” counters historian Radosh....

....but right and wrong ARE black and white, and shrill Liberal Socialist Pondscum (LSP) denials will not change this. Equally fictional are the contentions that Ann's research is suspect; anything which shows LSP in the light of truth is suspect as far as LSP are concerned! As Ann points out in Treason, screaming in protest and baseless personal attacks are the standard LSP techniques to counter truth, an example of which is "accurate research"!

The author of this article is, clearly, looking for a way to discredit Ann specifically and truth in general! How laughably typical about LSP!!

193 posted on 10/20/2003 10:13:14 AM PDT by mil-vet
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To: Semper
No. You don't get a DFC for "flying enought missions" (that would be an Air Medal). You get a DFC for demonstrating uncommon courage in air combat. (Which tailgunner Joe did not do.)

Often times medals are awarded based on "stock" criteria, such a completeling a given number of missions, or serving in a particular location for a certain number of days. Besides, the DFC is not awarded only for "uncommon courage in air combat" but also for "extraordinary achievement", in fact the criteria does not require combat at all, only that the event occur during aerial flight. Lindberg got one for flying the Atlantic, and even Amehilia Airheart got one, as did the Wright brothers, retroactively in their case.

After a little seraching around to try to find the *real* criteria used in WW-II. I gound the following:

Included was a medal Mulcahy couldn’t recall ever actually having had in his hand: the Distinguished Flying Cross awarded for completing 20 combat missions in the western Pacific between March 29 and June 19, 1945. “I had it on paper,” he recalled." here .

So apparently, in at least some cases, the DFC was awarded on the basis of combat missions flown. Undoubtably the "real" criteria has changed since WW-II, so your experience may be different.

194 posted on 10/20/2003 11:39:21 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: El Gato
After a little seraching around to try to find the *real* criteria used in WW-II. I gound the following:

Heavens to Murgatroy. I'll try that again.

After a little searching. I found the following:

195 posted on 10/20/2003 11:45:08 AM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: El Gato
Somebody check on El Gato. He was about to share some kind of information when he was cut off. Please don't tell us that the Duz are actively kidnapping people!

Seriously, the "mean, old McCarthy" thing has been overheard by developing youngsters for over two generations now. Urban legend extroirdinaire'. The Democrats wore him out and he fell to alcoholism. Much like liberals will tell each other when (if?) Ted finally burns.
If we won't bother to correct historical misconceptions the future will see hogwash as unDISPUTED truth.
196 posted on 10/20/2003 6:57:13 PM PDT by NewRomeTacitus (No eternal flame for Ted. Too many regulations against heat near ignitable materials.)
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To: doug from upland
Yeah, I heard that one live, but I missed this latest one. That was a hoot too.
197 posted on 10/20/2003 7:00:19 PM PDT by RatSlayer
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To: NewRomeTacitus
El Gato was only trying to correct his errors from the previous post where he mangled the grammer and a had a couple of typing errors.
198 posted on 10/20/2003 7:10:45 PM PDT by RatSlayer
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To: NewRomeTacitus
Somebody check on El Gato.

Consider it done. Just had supper with my wife, a rare occurance, and then went to the supermarket. My wife lives 350 or so miles away. Or I should say I live I 350 miles from *her* and my younger daughter. Not marital problems, but rather the result of Clintonsizing in 1998. She travels a lot in her "job", and so gets down to see me more often than I get up to see them, but it's still not too often. Then I was busy on other threads, until I just punched "My Comments".

Why would Duz, well Duzzy, the son of a good friend of my Dad, who is now a two star general in the Army want to kidnap me? :)

199 posted on 10/20/2003 11:03:04 PM PDT by El Gato (Federal Judges can twist the Constitution into anything.. Or so they think.)
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To: Forgiven_Sinner
"Are you now - or have you ever been - comfy?" Snide leftist bile.
200 posted on 10/20/2003 11:08:06 PM PDT by 185JHP ( Not much quag. Even less mire.)
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