From David Horowitz, an admirer of Coulter and a publisher of her work:
“It is a shame that Coulter mars her case with claims that cannot be sustained. In making McCarthy the center of her history, ironically, she has fallen into the very liberal trap she warns about. It is the Left that wants McCarthy to be the center of (and in effect to define) the postwar era so that it can use his recklessness to discredit the anti-Communist cause. In fact, as Coulter herself points out, McCarthy began his anti-Communist crusade after the decisive battles of 1947 and 1948, surfacing only in 1950, after the onset of the Korean War. By then, even Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, knew he had been duped. This is why McCarthy did not unearth any Communists in government or out (all they had all been previously identified by the FBI), and why FBI officials engaged in counter-intelligence work despised McCarthy for damaging their efforts. Hopefully, ‘Treason’ will not have a similar effect.”
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={85013A39-1679-49EF-9799-DE762C337F95}
To Robwin:
Horowitz repeats the old saw that “McCarthy did not unearth any Communists in government or out (all they had all been previously identified by the FBI).”
As Evans shows, this is a Straw Man: McCarthy did not claim to have unearthed any Communists in government. He said certain people who had been flagged by the FBI, State Department security, Army intelligence, Attorney General, HUAC, etc., as security risks were nevertheless cleared by the Truman loyalty-security boards. Others who had been disapproved by the boards were nevertheless mysteriously cleared by unnamed higher-ups. In carrying out Congress’ constitutional duty of oversight, McCarthy sought to find out why these particular cases were cleared, when others, obviously far less egregious, were kicked out.
Horowitz repeats the old claim that “FBI officials engaged in counter-intelligence work despised McCarthy for damaging their efforts.” Note that he does not quote any. I already quoted Hoover’s own words to prove that the old claim that Hoover opposed McCarthy was false. If the FBI agents involved in counter-intelligence despised McCarthy, who was feeding him the FBI reports suppressed by Truman?