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Modernman,
I understand what you mean (even though Ronald Reagan did get his barbs into his opponents, he was such a darn nice guy that they just couldn't hate him...:)

As for Ann Coulter, I credit her with giving me the impetus to learn about the McCarthy era. She is the one who sent me down the road of trying to learn for myself more about the events of that time...

I heard, read and saw all the things on McCarthy over the years, the talk about the "Communist Scare" in the derisive quotes, the Evil McCarthy, the naming of names, the badgering and maltreatment of witnesses, the ruining of lives, and so on. I believed it all. I was pretty sure he was a bad guy, and "McCarthyism" was a bad thing. Walter Cronkite said he was bad, as did all the newspapers and media, as well as all of my teachers in school.

I never doubted it for one second, it never even occurred to me to doubt it. After all, WHY would anyone lie about this kind of thing? So I accepted it, hook, line, and sinker. And I don't think I was alone.

Then, I read "Treason" by Ann Coulter.

When I read it, I thought "This cannot be right. Both versions of this, Coulter's version and the one I learned growing up, were diametrically opposed to each other. What really crystallized it for me was the section described by Ann Coulter with Joseph Welch and his famous "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" quote.

The version I grew up with, is that McCarthy harangued and abused a person, Fred Fisher, an aide to Mr. Welch, outing him as a communist in open hearing activities that were completely unrelated to the young man. He did this out of complete and total malice, with disregard for the truth. Welch jumped to his feet, uttered the words, and courageously initiated McCarthy's slide out of power and ultimately to his death in disgrace. McCarthyism was discredited.

The version Coulter gives is that Roy Cohn, McCarthy's assistant was on the stand, being questioned by Mr. Welch. Mr. Welch ridiculed, belittled, abused and generally tried to make a fool out of Mr. Cohn and by extension, McCarthy. The questioning was, over and over again repetitively, something like "Now Mr. Cohn, we cannot have communists in our government, right? So...you well tell us where they all are now, right? We must get them all rounded up and out of the government by sundown!" Making squeals of mock horror, wide eyed, playing to the bank of journalists from the NYT and other papers, and so on. McCarthy apparently tried for several hours to get Mr. Welch to give it up and get on with serious business, trying to cut in with "Mr. Welch, please...let's get on with the business at hand..." and would be cut off by Mr. Welch, who continued to harangue Roy Cohn. Finally, after several hours of having his assistant belittled, ridiculed and abused, McCarthy stood up, angry and wanting to come to the aid of his assistant, Roy Cohn, interrupted and said something to the effect of: "Mr. Welch, since you are so inisistent on knowing where all the communists in government are, you should know you have one in your own office. Your assistant Fred Fisher in your Boston Office is a member of the Lawyers Guild which is the legal team for the American Communist Party, and is a member of another communist organization..." (not the exact words, but he said something like this)

So, I look at these two accounts which are completely different, who is right?

I obtained the transcripts of the hearings, something I would imagine only a very, very small percentage of Americans have ever done. And I read them.

Guess what? Ann Coulter's version is the accurate one. So I took everything I ever knew about McCarthy, communism in American, Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and everything else, tossed it out the window and started from scratch.

I started out by reading "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers, and ended with several books about the Venona Project, with a bunch of books on McCarthy and books on Communism in America sandwiched in between.

I came to the conclusion, America had been betrayed by the Media, and liberals of that generation. In our lives, we had been fed a politically based version of "news" at the time, and in our schools our textbooks and history of the era is equally tainted.

Since then, I have not been able to watch or read the news from the main sources in the world, particularly not US media. I find it to be completely untrustworthy. I simply accept it as one source of many, which may or may not be true and must be independently verified or cross verified with other media types.

The material from the Venona Project has borne out the FACT that our government was RIDDLED with communist agents and sympathizers. People like Harry Hopkins, the closest, personal aide to FDR, was in the employ of the Soviets, verified by Venona intercepts. ANYONE out there ever wonder why we SCREWED the Eastern Europeans at Yalta? Harry Hopkins was FDR's chief advisor. I don't think it was a coincidence.

So, McCarthy was spot on. And he paid for it with his life and reputation.

Bottom line for me is that Ann Coulter has proven herself to be more truthful than her dissembling opponents, who still cling to the notions that Alger Hiss was not a spy and that the Rosenbergs were innocent.

I may wish that discourse in this country was more civilized, but in the face of the stuff spewing out of the mouths of the left, I don't wish to play by Queensbury rules. In my book, if you get kicked in the gonads, the person doing the kicking loses the unstated privilege of not being kicked there as well.

I respect and appreciate your civilized views on this, but I believe it must be a two way street. In my opinion, there is too much at stake. Ceding the high ground in the editorial section (in my case, to the likes of Joan Vennochi and Derrick Z. Jackson in this part of the country) to those who are not going to observe the rules is tantamount to tying a hand behind your back.

Would you mind if those of us who are closer to Ann Coulter on these issues call on people like you to mend the fences for us when the carnage is over?...:)