It would take a book to cover them all, but here's my personal favorite:
Giving slapdash, conservative polemic a bad nameAnn Coulter is the conservative babe whose modus vivendi, says Andrew Sullivan, is to "look amazing and ratchet up the rhetoric against the Left until it has the subtlety and nuance of a car alarm." Her latest book, "Treason" (2003), is one long accusation of disloyalty, and includes one paragraph about me.
As part of a chapter on media types being apologists for Reds, she attacks a newspaper book review I wrote on "The Spy Who Seduced America." The spy was Judith Coplon, convicted in 1950 after a public trial in which she was defended in the press by the liberals of the day. The two words Coulter quoted from my review said that the government's case against Coplon was "entirely circumstantial." Coulter replied:
"The circumstance was this: in March 1949, she was arrested while handing secret government documents to a Russian agent. I suppose you could call that a "circumstance." Needless to say, Soviet cables confirmed that Coplon was a Soviet agent. Liberal refusal to accept any evidence that any person ever spied for the Soviet Union would be exasperating if it weren't so comical."I read this paragraph over a few times, hardly believing it. The book in question, written by FBI agent Thomas Mitchell and wife Marcia, had concluded that Coplon was guilty. I had agreed: Coplon was a communist spy. Indeed, the title of my review, which is accurately listed in Coulter's footnote, includes the words, "a True Tale of Espionage."
Further, I had said in the review that the labeling of the postwar spy cases as "witch hunts" and "McCarthyism" is a falsification, because there were communist employees in the government spying for the Soviet Union.
As for the "entirely circumstantial" evidence, Coplon, a federal employee, was arrested while meeting with a Russian agent. Coplon had not taken the classified documents from her purse, and was not handing them to him. In another five minutes she probably would have, and of course the meeting itself was damning (but circumstantial) evidence. Yes, Soviet cables confirmed that Coplon was a Soviet agent — but for security reasons, the government had not used those cables as evidence.
So here I was, a non-liberal favorably reviewing a book that exposes a communist spy, and I am accused of "refusal to accept any evidence that any person ever spied for the Soviet Union."
Well, I stopped reading her book. I couldn't believe a thing in it. — Bruce Ramsey
Your citation contains no Coulter lies.
Try again.
Ann said:
"Liberal refusal to accept any evidence that any person ever spied for the Soviet Union would be exasperating if it weren't so comical."
Ramsey said:
"So here I was, a non-liberal favorably reviewing a book that exposes a communist spy, and I am accused of "refusal to accept any evidence that any person ever spied for the Soviet Union."
So if Ramsey is by his own admission a non-liberal, then by definition she wasn't talking about him. Or else she got exasperated that Ramsey referred to the meeting as "entirely circumstantial" while ignoring the evidence of the cables. If he had said, "At the time of the meeting, it was circumstantial, but now we know better" Ann would probably have been more forgiving.
Cheers!
the Seattle Times Opinion blog "I understand that it is an important matter to you, because the book mentions your name. The closest I ever got to your position was having one of my book reviews turned around backwards by Ann Coulter in Treason--essentially she said the Seattle Times had denied that Judith Coplon had been a Soviet spy, when my review had said the opposite--and Coulter mentioned my name only in an endnote, not in the main text. Still I was sore about it. In an email I asked her to do what Michelle Malkin has volunteered to do, which is to make a small change in later editions. Coulter did not reply, and did not make any change in the paperback edition, which came out well after my email to her. So think I understand your feelings on this."
Posted by Bruce Ramsey at May 15, 2005 11:09 AM
Got that from this site, huh?
http://blog.stopanncoulter.com/
I had to go and get my copy of Treason to look up Mr. Ramsey and the comments. Coulter is slamming the review and clairifying the facts....
Book Review
'Spy Who Seduced America' tells true tale of espionage
By Bruce Ramsey
Seattle Times editorial writer
Judith Coplon, 27, was arrested on the streets of New York on March 4, 1949. She was an analyst in the Department of Justice's Foreign Agents Registration Section. With her was Valentin Gubitschev, of the Soviet mission to the United Nations. In Coplon's purse were sensitive government documents.
What was going on? Love, she said. Spying, the government said.
Thus began two of the sensational trials of the Cold War — trials of a woman the press called a cutie pie, a Mata Hari and the girl next door. This book is about those trials. At its conclusion it is about facts, but along the way, it is mainly about arguments, because the case offered by the government was entirely circumstantial.
Coplon did have a right to have the documents in her purse. She had not passed them to the Russian; the government said she had intended to do it.
Well golly gee whiz, it does kind of look like Bruce Ramsey is saying she is innocent. I would have read it that way too. Maybe he didn't intend it, but it sure does look that way.
Maybe he is offended that Coulter doesn't know him. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Where is the lie again???
JTN, may I ask you a question?
When Bruce Ramsey reviewed the book, did he say that the government's case again Coplon was "entirely circumstantial?"
In his own words, he admitted as much, although he agreed that Coplon was a spy. You must agree that he DID say the evidence was circumstantial. Ann said there was nothing circumstantial about the evidence.
I believe Ann's reading comprehension is very good. Mr. Ramsey claimed the evidence was circumstancial, and Ann took exception to it.
She calls 'em like she see 'em. I don't think she is a liar.
That's why we love her so much. Ann doesn't let STAND off-hand remarks which are not true. She pointed out that Mr. Ramsey was WRONG insinuating there was no evidence of spying.
Now do you understand?
Opinions on Mr Ramsey's honesty and conservatism do not all make a ringing endorsement:
More On That Bruce Ramsey Column
Andy Macdonald has already said most of what needs to be said about the column, but Ramsey came on the John Carlson show and left me so annoyed that I have to add some points.
Let me begin by noting three serious factual errors in the column: First, Ramsey says that:
A taboo prevents American newspapers from running cartoons attacking Sharkansky's religion, which is Judaism.
I'll leave it to Stefan to say whether the last part of that sentence is accurate (assuming he wants to), but in fact American newspapers, including the Seattle PI and the Los Angeles Times, have run cartoons that have attacked Judaism. There was, not that long ago, a considerable controversy in the PI over a Ted Rall cartoon, for that very reason. And there have been similar cartoons in the Seattle Times, as Stefan Sharkansy notes in a post he finished about an hour before I finished this one. Of course such cartoons are common in most of the world.
Second, Ramsey says that we have other, similar taboos:
Always there are beliefs, opinions and images that are out of bounds. There are images of Jesus — or Martin Luther King, or the pope, or any person — that may not be shown.
In fact, all three have been attacked with cartoons, and in other ways. This very day, the New York Times — which has refused to publish the Danish cartoons — published a picture of Chris Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary", which was, as you may recall, made out of dung. Although few attack Martin Luther King now, he was often attacked during his lifetime, in cartoons, and in print. And if Ramsey will take a moment to search Google images with "Pope + cartoon" he will find almost 400 cartoons, including at least one by David Horsey.
Third, Ramsey says that there are 1.5 Billion Muslims. That's almost certainly way too high. There are no official figures for the number of believers, but a useful site, Adherents, gives this summary estimate on Islam:
Contemporary figures for Islam are usually between 900 million and 1.4 billion, with 1 billion being a figure frequently given in comparative religion texts, probably because it's such a nice, round number.
Besides those factual errors, there is an enormous insult in the column. Ramsey implies that all or nearly all Muslims would be offended by the images. In fact, Muslims, for centuries, have created just such images, by the thousands. You can see a representative collection here, though you may have trouble getting through to the site. To claim that all Muslims would be offended by images which they and their ancestors have been creating for centuries is both absurd and an enormous slur on most Muslims. (The Wahabbi sect, which would be offended, is both rather recent and a very small fraction of the world's Muslims. Wahabbis have offended many other Muslims by their destruction of historical artifacts in Saudi Arabia, some dating to the time of Muhammad, or shortly after.)
The conversation with Carlson did not clarify Ramsey's views. He was surprised when a caller asked him about the Abu Ghraib images, and argued that it was all right to publish those because they undermined President Bush. (He did not discuss whether the difficulties those pictures caused our troops were worth the trouble they caused the president, but I fear he would say they were.) No one asked him whether the false story about Koran desecration put out by Newsweek and carried in the Seattle Times should have been taboo, but someone should have.
Although his views seemed muddier after his time with Carlson, I did hear two possible clues to his thinking. In an earlier job, he had close Muslim friends. And, as he candidly admitted, he knows little about Muhammad. (And presumably about Islam, and its often violent history.) If we put those two together, we have a possible explanation for his views on the cartoons, and perhaps other subjects. Knowing little, he took as fact what his Muslim friends told him about Islam. And he has never bothered to do a little digging to check what they said. If that is the explanation, then it is about time he did.
(If Ramsey wants to learn more about Muhammad, let me immodestly suggest he start with my brief essay, WWMD? And for those who do look at it, let me ask you to look carefully at the last paragraph in which I argue that most Muslims behave far better than the founder of their religion did.
I must apologize for the promise at the end to discuss my sources, which I never got around to. Briefly, what I was going to argue is that many modern sources on Islam and Muhammad have been corrupted by political correctness and fear of Muslims. They are not necessarily wrong, but they leave out some of the more dismaying parts of Muhammad's life and the history of the religion he founded.)
More: I was so annoyed that I forgot to mention this interesting fact.:
While Muslims engaged in violent protests worldwide over caricatures of Muhammad have insisted any image of their prophet is considered blasphemous, a prominent frieze in the U.S. Supreme Court portrays the Islamic leader wielding a sword.
And it dates back to the 1930s. Wonder whether Ramsey is struck, as I am, by the fact that it hasn't caused many riots in all that time. And I would like him to tell us whether he thinks we should redo the building.
Even More: The cartoons were published last October in an Egyptian newspaper — and nothing happened. No riots, no demands for boycotts, nothing.
Posted by Jim Miller at February 08, 2006 06:10 PM
http://www.soundpolitics.com/archives/005701.html
The case at that time offered by the government was entirely circumstantial this is what Bruce Ramsey believed.
MAYBE she should have pointed out that Bruce Ramsey latter with other evidence believed she was a spy. But that is not what Ann was getting at all, she was pointing out his thinking in this part of the case ONLY. Forget the rest of the case, it is NOT important at all.
In other words Ann was right on target and it went right over your head.
As for the "entirely circumstantial" evidence, Coplon, a federal employee, was arrested while meeting with a Russian agent. Coplon had not taken the classified documents from her purse, and was not handing them to him. In another five minutes she probably would have, and of course the meeting itself was damning (but circumstantial) evidence. Yes, Soviet cables confirmed that Coplon was a Soviet agent — but for security reasons, the government had not used those cables as evidence.
Hmm...sound like the review DID say the evidence was circumstantial - although Ann was correct. The woman was there to hand over classified documents in her purse. That MAY qualify as circumstantial to a liberal, but most of us (particularly those of us with government clearances) realize you aren't supposed to be walking around with classified documents. When you carry those to a soviet spy, it is both circumstatial and damned obvious to anyone interested in the truth.
So here I was, a non-liberal favorably reviewing a book that exposes a communist spy, and I am accused of "refusal to accept any evidence that any person ever spied for the Soviet Union."
I think Ann was refering, not to the reviewer, but to the liberal Seattle paper and the liberals that defended her since the evidence was just that she took classified documents to a soviet spy.
BTW - I know nothing about the case except what I read in this post, so I could be making a bunch of factual errors.
McCarthy was a HERO as Ann Coulter said.. even before he was cruelly slandered.. Both FDR and Truman KNEW commies were in their administrations.. and did NOTHING.. Eleanor Roosevelt herself was either a commie dupe or implicit..