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To: publius1
What's striking is the failure to engage the subject..

Are you sure you can read?

His article is replete with specific examples which he says support his characterization of Coulter, such as

Her duped readers will believe that Marshall and President Harry S. Truman opposed Stalin only because Republicans won the midterm elections in 1946. They probably won't know that Truman confronted the Soviets in the Mediterranean with a naval task force several months before Election Day; or that the new Republican majority cut Truman's requested military budget by $500 million as soon as they took over Congress in January 1947, nearly crippling the American occupation of Germany and Japan; or that Truman, Marshall and Dean Acheson had to plead with the isolationist Republican leadership to oppose Russian designs on Greece and Turkey.

and

Her deceptive style is exemplified in an anecdote she lifts from an actual historian and twists to smear Truman. She writes: "Most breathtakingly, in March 1946, Truman ostentatiously rebuffed Churchill after his famous Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri. Immediately after Churchill's speech, Truman instructed his Secretary of State Dean Acheson not to attend a reception for Churchill a week later in New York." In that passage -- footnoted to James Chace's magisterial 1998 biography of Acheson -- Coulter demonstrates that she is both an intentional liar and an incompetent writer. The pages she cites from Chace explain quite clearly that Acheson (who was not then Secretary of State and would not be promoted to that office until 1949) was urged to avoid the New York reception by Secretary of State James Byrnes, not Truman. The British apparently didn't notice that "ostentatious rebuff," since they immediately invited Acheson and his wife to a cordial lunch with Churchill in Washington. And as for Truman, Chace notes that it was he who had invited Churchill to Missouri, his home state, to deliver the speech -- which the American president read in advance, assuring the former prime minister that his strong warning about communist intentions would "do nothing but good."

I haven't read the book or done the research so I can't judge whether he or Coulter is right...but you're wrong.

38 posted on 07/05/2003 11:24:27 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: liberallarry
What a pleasure it is to have a little liberal nose-picker doing oour fact-checking (liberal style) for us.
41 posted on 07/05/2003 11:28:29 AM PDT by capt. norm
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To: liberallarry
Coulter demonstrates that she is both an intentional liar and an incompetent writer.

Well. Larry, You snipped this. So get busy to back it up.

I read the screed. You bold up two paagraphs. You need to back up the one sentence above, or shut up.

47 posted on 07/05/2003 11:35:06 AM PDT by don-o
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To: liberallarry
There have been some wonderfully silly posts in here by lefty-lurkers and others, yours among them, so let me clear some things up:

1. Yes, I can read. I read Conason, and I read Coulter. Unlike you (and some others) I actually read both! Worse for me, I suppose, I actually lived through most of the years she discusses, so I know first-hand what she's talking about, and trust me, she's right. By the way, a personal request: Please, in the future, when are trying to be witty, say something that's actually witty; otherwise you just seem silly and petty.

2. The theme of Coulter's book is that for fifty years the left has in general acted and spoken publicly in such a way as to always give aid and comfort to the enemy. The occasional specific exception (e.g., Scoop Jackson, or the occasional moment of an Al Gore--most people probably won't remember; it was in the 80's) does not disprove the general thesis. That's the subject Conason fails to or refuses to engage. Instead, he spends however many words name-calling like a six year old, which is the kind of exertion that should raise the antennae: why, in that much space, can't he at least try to answer her general charge? Instead, the strategy of his piece is to claim that she left some things out, or got this or that specific instance of things wrong. The fact is (for example), there were communists in the State Department, and they were defended by Democrats, and promoted by Democrats, despite warnings by authorities. More recently, Democrats led the charge not just against the Viet Nam war, but for Ho Chi Minh. They praised Sadaam.... One should be entitled to ask, after a certain point, what's with these guys (and women)? Why do they always--always!--take the anti-American position? These are sensible questions, asked by Coulter, unanswered by Conason.

If you're a controversialist like Coulter, you could then ask the next logical question, which is: how would the positions taken by Democrats be different if they were actively seeking to undermine the country? Again, from Conason, words and words, but no answer, other than to call Ann in so many words a penis-head.

The point of the headline to my post was that some men refuse to take women seriously. Name-calling is not a serious argument. Ask yourself this question: if treason had been written by, say, Christopher Hitchens or George Will or Bill Buckley, would Conason respond with this bitch-screed?

I hope this is helpful.
70 posted on 07/05/2003 12:08:58 PM PDT by publius1 (Almost as if he likes it...)
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