Ann Coulter, Saucy Siren Of The Right, Sounds Off

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

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.”

“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!”

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.”

“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.

As I recall, Joe tried to imply that he had done things which he did not and that his service was more "heroic" than it actually was - that is how he got the nickname of "Tailgunner Joe".

Was it that, or were his adversaries making fun (dark fun) of the record he did have. If it is true that he had 20 combat missions in recce aircraft, that is nothing to spit at. The motto of the recce guys, at least later, was "Unarmed and Unafraid". (That's also the title of book about airborne reccon). While the first part was often true, the latter part was a damned lie in most cases. :)

A quick search for the story behind the "tailgunner Joe", nickname did not produce much results. The only explanation I could find comes from The New American, which if one is wont to be "down" on TJ, is probably not going to be very convincing. However here is an excerpt from the article there:

Although his judgeship exempted him from military service, McCarthy enlisted in the Marines and was sworn in as a first lieutenant in August 1942. He served as an intelligence officer for a bomber squadron stationed in the Solomon Islands, and also risked his life by volunteering to fly in the tail-gunner's seat on many combat missions. Those who quibble about the number of combat missions he flew miss the point - he didn't have to fly any.

The enemies of McCarthy have seized on his good-natured remark about shooting down coconut trees from his tail-gunner's spot (an ABC television movie about McCarthy in the late 1970s was entitled Tail Gunner Joe) to belittle his military accomplishments, but the official record gives the true picture. Not only were McCarthy's achievements during 30 months of active duty unanimously praised by his commanding officers, but Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, issued the following citation regarding the service of Captain McCarthy:

For meritorious and efficient performance of duty as an observer and rear gunner of a dive bomber attached to a Marine scout bombing squadron operating in the Solomon Islands area from September 1 to December 31, 1943. He participated in a large number of combat missions, and in addition to his regular duties, acted as aerial photographer. He obtained excellent photographs of enemy gun positions, despite intense anti-aircraft fire, thereby gaining valuable information which contributed materially to the success of subsequent strikes in the area. Although suffering from a severe leg injury, he refused to be hospitalized and continued to carry out his duties as Intelligence Officer in a highly efficient manner. His courageous devotion to duty was in keeping with the highest traditions of the naval service. ---- Well, at least I learned something I didn't know before. MaCarthy was Jarhead AND an Intelligence officer. No wonder he was kinda "different". We all know how Marines are and all the intell guys I know, (A bunch from the USAFR) are "different". Including the one "guy" who is a gal, and also one star general, the highest ranking USAF Reserve component intell officer, AFAIK, although she's probably the most "regular" person of the bunch. But none as "different" as the engineers serving in technical intell billets, we were really strange.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.