Posted on 06/25/2003 4:22:49 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
I DARE CALL IT TREASON
BY ANN COULTER
The myth of "McCarthyism" is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Sen. Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis. As Whittaker Chambers said: "[I]nnocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does."
At the time, half the country realized liberals were lying. But after a half century of liberal myth-making, even the disgorging of Soviet and American archives half a century later could not overcome their lies. In 1995, the U.S. government released its cache of Soviet cables that had been decoded during the Cold War in a top-secret undertaking known as the Venona Project. The cables proved the overwhelming truth of McCarthy's charges. Naturally, therefore, the release of decrypted Soviet cables was barely mentioned by the New York Times. It might have detracted from stories of proud and unbowed victims of "McCarthyism." They were not so innocent after all, it turns out.
Soviet spies in the government were not a figment of right-wing imaginations. McCarthy was not tilting at windmills. He was tilting at an authentic communist conspiracy that had been laughed off by the Democratic Party. The Democrats had unpardonably connived with the greatest evil of the 20th century. This could not be nullified. But liberals could at least hope to redeem the Democratic Party by dedicating themselves to rewriting history and blackening reputations. This is what liberals had done repeatedly throughout the Cold War. At every strategic moment this century, liberals would wage a campaign of horrendous lies and disinformation simply to dull the discovery the American people had made. They had gotten good at it.
There were, admittedly, a few rare and striking exceptions to the left's overall obtuseness to communist totalitarianism. John F. Kennedy's pronouncements on communism could have been spoken by Joe McCarthy. For all his flaws, Truman unquestionably loved his country. He was a completely different breed from today's Democrats. Through the years, there were various epiphanic moments creating yet more anti-communist Democrats. The Stalin-Hitler pact, Alger Hiss' prothonotary warbler, information about the purges and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" – all these had their effect.
But after World War II, the Democratic Party suffered a form of what France had succumbed to after World War I. The entire party had lost is nerve for sacrifice, heroism and bravery. Beginning in the '50s, there was a real battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. By the late '60s, the battle was over. The anti-communist Democrats had lost.
In 1972, George McGovern, darling of left-wing radicals, was the Democratic presidential candidate. Tom Hayden, leader of Students for a Democratic Society and an instigator of the Chicago riots, became a Democratic state senator in California. (In 1968, Staughton Lynd wrote of Tom Hayden: "On Monday, Wednesday and Friday he was a National Liberation Front guerilla, and on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, he ... was on the left wing of the Democratic Party.") Black Panther Bobby Rush would go on to become a Democratic congressman. Todd Gitlin, a former president of SDS, would soon be a frequent op-ed columnist for the New York Times. By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, only 10 Senate Democrats voted with the President Bush to use troops against Saddam Hussein. If the old Democratic Party was merely obtuse, the new Democratic Party was a beachhead of domestic anti-Americanism. This was the new Democratic Party.
Clinton was the left's last best hope for proving they could too handle the presidency. Having tricked the American people into entrusting a Democrat with the White House (on a plurality vote), they had to defend him from any lie, any felony, any reprehensible, contemptible conduct he threw their way. When Clinton first showed his fat oleaginous mug to the nation, the Republicans screamed he was a draft-dodging, pot-smoking flim-flam artist. Had the Republicans turned out to be right again, it would have sounded the death knell for the Democratic Party.
So the Democrats lied. Through their infernal politics of personal destruction, liberals stayed in the game for a few more years.
Unless we fight for proper treatment of history and counter the nonsense images of McCarthy, no history can be safe from the liberal noise machine. Someday, school children will be taught that all of America cringed with terror at Ken Starr, whose evil designs on the nation were frustrated only through the sacrifice of brave liberals. People will have vivid images of the pounding boots of Starr's subpoena-servers and the Gestapo-like wails of alarms as Ken Starr arrived to kick in the doors of innocent Americans and storm through their bedrooms. It will be the Reign of Terror under Ken Starr.
Bill Clinton will be revered in high school history books as the George Washington of his day who, along with patriots Larry Flynt and James Carville, "saved the Constitution." He will be honored with a memorial larger than the Washington Monument (though probably with the same general design).
People will believe that. And liberals will continue unabashedly invoking a lie in order to shield their ongoing traitorous behavior.
I have to disagree with you there. Now, I will agree that she's not terribly good at face-to-face debating (in fact, she seems to be downright awful at it), but her writing and her research are invaluable. She's a major asset to the conservative community, and I'm sure glad she's on our side.
I'm an intellectual, and Ann Coulter is my better, and the intellectual better of many lettered academics.
And that's quite obvious.
Actually, you will need to take a careful look at alledged victim's life and see what the liberals left out.
What ever happened to Jennifer (Breathless)? Haven't seen her around in a long time.
An interesting fact is that JFK's father, Joe P. Kennedy, Ambassador to the Court of St. James, the one that Winston Churchill dismissed and sent back to FDR, was an avid supporter of Joe McCarthy, including him in Kennedy Family Events and arranged for Bobby Kennedy (RFK) to be on McCarthy's staff. Even though Joe P. Kennedy was a vocal supporter of Hitler, he hated Communism. This probably explains why JFK said the things he said about Communism, but fails to explain why he betrayed the Bay of Pigs and did not take pre-emptive action to stop the placement of MRBM/IRBM's during the Cuban Missele Crisis...rto
They always say he or she was "persecuted for their beliefs", but they never come out and say that these people were card-carrying members of the Soviet Communist Party. You'd think they would adopt the Seinfeld approach like "OK, Garfield was a Communist...not that there's anything wrong with that!" They never do that though. They just say he had "unpopular views" and was persecuted for not naming names or some such rot.
Like most folks, I have been conditioned to accept that McCarthy was some kind of maniacal bigot--with only a few samples of incomplete antidotal evidence. Now as someone who knows little about the facts--except the only conclusion I am supposed to have, I hear there is another view from someone who I have found to be very has ostensivly done a lot of research, and whom has earned a good deal of credibility as a leading conservative commentator.
Should I read further and seek the facts that Ann presents in her book, or should I just go on accepting the prejudice that I was indoctrinated into while I was growing up?
What a useless post!
Are you dyslexic?
Have daddy buy you the book, then have mommy read it to you.
Then, unless you are retarded and have a profound comprehension problem, you can answer the question all by yourself!.
yes, I did notice that you just joined FR... have a nice trip...
I really appreciate having dissenting opinions on here, and agree that the folks making an issue of Cael's sign up time here on FR is not relevant.
I am really anxious to ask those that are in the know about the details of evil McCarhism: What was the death toll? Probably more then the 100 mil or so Communism killed huh.
Strongly disagree. I am considered by most folks that know me to be very intellegent as well as pragmatic. Ann is among the short list of columnists who have my respect as being much sharper than I in both areas.
On a side note, a major reason that conservative intellectuals dominate over their liberal counterparts in talk radio and political books--is that conservatives can recognize and respect those that earn it, where liberals resent those that earn it. I want to read Ann's book, and listen to folks like Limbaugh and Walter Willaims et al because they have earned my respect by being accurate and insightful--which are traits that seem abbandoned by the Left whose members seem engrossed in ego stroking themselves by bringing down the best and brightest among us.
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