A Conspiracy So Vast: Meet Ann Coulter, the Maureen Dowd of the conservatives

Opinion Journal ^ | 07/14/03 | DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

[Pokey78]

John G. Adams, a key figure in the proceedings that effectively ended Sen. Joseph McCarthy's career, passed quietly from the scene last week at age 91. Not surprisingly, his death made no news; it's been a while since those heady days when McCarthy launched his investigations of the Army, which had, he charged, been shielding countless Communist agents at Fort Monmouth and elsewhere. It fell to Adams, the Army's chief counsel, to deal with the charges, which he did to devastating effect in the Army-McCarthy hearings that held the nation in thrall in the 1950s.

[sinkspur]

I've read a lot of Rabinowitz but the shallowness of her attack on Coulter's book puzzles me. It seems almost reflexive, as if she's not really able to mount an in-depth intellectual assessment of Coulter's arguments because of ingrained prejudices against McCarthy.

Yea. Rabinowitz is Jewish. She just might not agree with people who defend Nazis.

I wonder...have you actually read "Treason" or are you basing your criticisms on reviews like Andrew Sullivan's and hearsay?

I haven't read TREASON, nor do I intend to.

Ann Coulter is a polemicist, not a serious writer. Her intent is to whip her followers and the rabid right into a frenzy, which she seems to do, quite well, every time she writes or makes a television appearance, as is evidenced on this website. (Being a leggy blonde only helps her with the male contingent.)

I prefer Dorothy Rabinowitz and Peggy Noonan to Coulter. Seasoned, reasoned, nuanced, and thoughtful.

They're also older and more statuesque, which matches my taste in women perfectly.

[MJY1288]

Dorothy's article questioning why Ann Coulter didn't include a certain decision or stand that McCarthy made during his career is a huge injustice to Ann's book. McCarthy's demonization by the left is what she writes about, NOT on why McCarthy should be considered for Saint hood.

It would be like ignoring everything Dick Morris has to say because he didn't detail in his book about the mistakes Janet Reno made, when the point of his book was to expose how Bill Clinton neglected his duties as POTUS

[DPB101]

My guess is also that Joe McCarthy was more about promoting Joe McCarthy than anything else.

With all due respect, you could not be more wrong. McCarthy knew what was coming his way. He knew he would be trashed. He also knew the CPUSA had a contract out on his life. He said that from the start. He did it because someone had to do it. Republicans won the Congress in 1946 in a landslide because Truman and Democrats were losing country after country to communists. But even after that, Truman was dragging his feet and keeping known Soviet agents on in his administration.

[wireplay]

Nope, still don't see this as a book review. It is on the editorial pages of the WSJ. Purely commentary on the Joe McCarthy bit. Seems Dorothy didn't like that part and lasered in on it as a topic.

[beckett]

Rabinowitz is a woman of impeccable integrity. She is all class. If I had to choose between her and Coulter as to who is the more reliable scholar, I'd pick Rabinowitz every time.

[Publius6961]

she ignores significant historical data like Buchanan.

This might come as a surprise to you (it shouldn't) but what you think is significant historical data is not what defines it.
Sorry.

Perhaps when you write your own best seller you can choose all the "significant historical data" that you and your red diaper baby buddies can conjure up.

[wireplay]

Sorry, I've seen his videos and he is a pure showman. He may have had a fact or two correct but he was a pure showman. I don't disagree that he did some good but let's not ignore what the man was.

[Lancey Howard]

I guess we can presume...

Who's "we"?
Now you're exposing yourself as a mouse. Are you on a college debate team? Your claim that I am doing a snide hatchet job on Rabinowitz by observing that she did a snide hatchet job on Coulter is.... pretty obtuse. Take a hike.

[sinkspur]

It would be like ignoring everything Dick Morris has to say because he didn't detail in his book about the mistakes Janet Reno made, when the point of his book was to expose how Bill Clinton neglected his duties as POTUS

Actually, it's more like writing ANYTHING about Robert Byrd and leaving out his KKK affiliation.

Would that be OK with you?

[hoosiermama]

She may be a woman of impeccable integrity, but read the book and then read the article. She doesn't show her scholarship on this one. Am a bit embarrassed for her.

[DPB101]

Yea. Rabinowitz is Jewish. She just might not agree with people who defend Nazis.

Yeah...a shame for Rabinowitz that she cannot see any evil which does not affect her being Jewish.

Many of the spies in Ann's book were Jewish. Coulter tried not to spell that out, she even suggested Harry Dexter White was a WASP. Ann Coulter player fair, she did not assign a religion or race to anyone in her book on treason. Yet, if one looks at who is bashing her, she might as well have.

[MJY1288]

Hey wait a minute, He didn't defend the Nazi's, he criticized our treatment of them, That's a bit different from defending them. No where in this article does it detail his defense of the Nazi's, it says he questioned the treatment of them.

I have not read the facts behind this claim, but questioning our treatment of Nazi's is a bit different from defending the Nazi's for executing our soldiers.

[Publius6961]

Because McCarthy would have looked like a Nazi-symp, and it would have destroyed Coulter's book.

As usual, you are relying on the ignorance of the lemmings to hope that the statement makes sense or makes a footnote relevant to the subject in any way.

You are changing the subject and attempting to attack the messenger and hoping that the rest of us, like you, ignore the message.

Historical attorneys, even some of our founding fathers, defended in court less than squeeky clean defendants. It is so common that it's comical that this should be deemed relevant to the book.

I was gonna say "nice try", but "lame" seems more appropriate.

[wireplay]

So I assume that only authors with best sellers can comment on history? What a red herring...

This is the oldest subject in history which is who can effectively interpret it. What constitutes a historical fact? Whatever fact you can make linkage to constitutes a fact. The number of people who buy your book indicates how well you can tell a story and promote it not how solid your facts are.

I have a great history book called Fin-De-Siecle Vienna. Not many read it but does that discount its facts?

[sinkspur]

Perhaps when you write your own best seller you can choose all the "significant historical data" that you and your red diaper baby buddies can conjure up.

You mean like Buchanan's insistence that a certain type of diesel engine--alleged by historians--couldn't possibly have been used to gas Jews at Auschwitz? As if this made them any less dead?

Or that McCarthy actually went to bat, publicly, for the GD Waffen SS?

Blonde ambition got you down too?

[sinkspur]

If Ann Coulter looked like Dorothy Rabinowitz, nobody would know who the hell she was.

[habs4ever]

It is not a book review, and she is under no obligation to to cover the book in it's totality.

[Lancey Howard]

You sure are obsessed with being raped by Bill Clinton.
Since you cannot, indeed, stick to the topic at hand, please don't post to me anymore.
Thanks in advance.

[MJY1288]

sinkspur, I respect you and your posting history here on FR, But I think you are over reacting a bit. Read the book and see for yourself. Granted, Ann has no time for Liberals, but she denounces Communist and Nazi's throughout her book, in fact she points out how liberals defended Hitler, or at least put their faith in Hitler's word over Winston Churchill's. READ THE BOOK

[Publius6961]

So it's OK with you if McCarthy fought to defend Waffen SS Nazis,...

I do realize that you are still unaware that putting words in peoples mouths is a desperation argumentation tactic.
Its effect on informed readers is exactly zero, or negative.

I just can't help wondering if you take yourself seriously?