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.

[nopardons]

It depends upon the witnesses. My interest in turn of the century Vienna is familial. The eyewitnesses to certain parts of history can be more relivant and more encompasing, than many written sources; though, like you, I weigh what I read, compare and contrast, and enjoy knowing things which most authors either don't know, or leave out.

Since I have said that Joe McCarthy was right, for far more decades prior to Ann's even thinking about writing " TREASON ", and having lived through that time, read many books about it, I am looking forward to reading her book. I'll make up my mind about it, in its entirity, afterwards. What triggered my aprobation, re this article, was the way it was written, the misleading and smary invective against Ann, McCarthy, and the book. It wasn't a review, it wasn't even a polemic ... it was a nasty hit piece of a diatribe, devoid of much other than palpable emotion and seething hatred.

If I relied on the N.Y. Times best seller list, as my mentor on history books, I'd miss out on a lot of great, worthy books. LOL

[nopardons]

Please excuse the numerous repeat postings. I don't know why it did that. I only posted it once; honest !

[donmeaker]

Please note that the Waffen SS are organizaionally distinguishable from the prison camp guards. It is not complete, because there was some recruitment from the prison camp personnel as Himmler tried to expand the SS. I think that it was the 3rd Standarden which drew most extensively from the Gestapo and the prison camps, and the 3rd was not involved at Malmedy.

Having said that, there were several instances where Waffen SS units killed prisoners en masse. That approach seems to have been much more common on the Soviet-Nazi fronts, where most of the Waffen SS units did their work. The soviets also were known for shooting prisoners. Kaytun Wood being the famous place where Polish prisoners (some 10,000) were executed. About 1.5 million german prisoners died in soviet custody after the war was over.

[DPB101]

Rabinowitz was a great writer. Honest as the day is long.

But no longer. She is attacking Ann Coulter for one reason and one reason only: Many Soviet spies (as well as the Soviet KGB agents who recruited them) were Jewish.

[donmeaker]

SS units mostly served on the "Eastern Front" where such practices were common on both sides. Part of the problem was Hitler's determination to conquer or drag the whole country down with him. Hitler's Illegal orders were issued, but usually not passed down by the Army high command, according to many sources.

Many German soldiers died while under US control, after the war was over. It was unavoidable::: Food supplies were limited, and some priorities had to be set. US soldiers got full rations, Civilians were the second priority, and German prisoners were last. Part of the reason for the shortage of food was the German destruction of French ports, and diversion of work from productive labor to war goods in response to German/Japanese/Italian aggression.

[Brian Allen]

<< That's a pretty significant thing to leave out of "a [Man's] biography." >>

If it was in fact "a biography."

But you invented that lie to support your tangible animus -- and attempt to make your point.

You did not [Make it] and your animus clearly clouds your judgement here and tends to diminish your credibility and to limit your ability to participate in this thread's discussion of Rabinowitz's rabid rant.

Just as that poor old bag's Ann envy has bred a Dowdful little anti-Ann animus of its own. And precluded the employment of any objectivity in her shallow piece's somewhat pathetic projection.

Maybe she had just gotten her hand smacked away -- or had a bad hangover?

[nopardons]

You may be correct about her religion coloring her approach to this. I don't really know what her problem is; all I know, that this untoward diatribe is specious, smary, and sound as though it were written by an unregenerate lefty/Commie.

[nopardons]

Spot on ! BRAVO

[Dark Knight]

I don't know if anyone is interested in the Malmedy Massacre as seen from historians, but this one seems to have the incident in perspective, from 1954. Read her bio too, she is not either a Nazi nor Commie sympathizer. Here's the Malmedy Massacre link:
http://www.fredautley.com/malmedy.htm

And her Bio (a great read):
http://www.fredautley.com/bio.htm

Sounds like, at the time, Joe was just defending the truth, even though Nazis were the defendents.

I am really uncomfortable condemning past figures using current mores. Joe was right about treasonist spies in the government, and that was a good thing. He was willing to go against the public anti Nazi fervor to defend Nazis accused of something they may not have committed and were being hanged for.

In this story, it reveals that a General Handy stopped the hangings because of his doubt. He stated on January 31, 1951: "The offenses are connected with a confused, mobile and desperate combat action."

Its just a little more complicated than first presented. I am not an historian and am disappointed I found this out. Dorothy should have looked. I spent 15 minutes. It was not rocket science (Verner).

Read this story and then decide.

DK

[William McKinley]

The antisemitism card

was not being played. "Joe McCarthy defended the SS, in a particular incident in which they had killed Americans." is the detail being argued, which has nothing to do with Jews.

[William McKinley]

Hitchens is not a conservative in any way, shape, or form.

[Endeavor]

We're FR. And we get to disagree with certain polemicists works w/o being called liberals.

[William McKinley]

McCarthy, undeserving as he may be of the extreme villification he's gotten over the years, is far from a rehabilitatable character, as even so august a figure as William F. Buckley has been known to admit on occasion. He was a flawed man who properly recognized a security threat and then handled addressing that threat in a less than laudable manner. It's my view that his alcoholism, and the grandiosity that often goes along with alcoholism, played a central role in many of his excesses.

The historian Peter Viereck got it about right when said of the McCarthy era and the reactions to McCarthy from the left, "I am against hysteria, but I am also against hysteria about hysteria."

[William McKinley]

McCarthy, undeserving as he may be of the extreme villification he's gotten over the years, is far from a rehabilitatable character, as even so august a figure as William F. Buckley has been known to admit on occasion. He was a flawed man who properly recognized a security threat and then handled addressing that threat in a less than laudable manner. It's my view that his alcoholism, and the grandiosity that often goes along with alcoholism, played a central role in many of his excesses.

The historian Peter Viereck got it about right when said of the McCarthy era and the reactions to McCarthy from the left, "I am against hysteria, but I am also against hysteria about hysteria."

Outstanding.

[FreedomPoster]

My understanding from another Treason thread where the McCarthy / SS subject was discussed, is that McCarthy was uncomfortable with the process under which these SS officers were being convicted, and was demanding a "rule of law" approach rather than a "conquerors make it up as they go along" approach. If so, commendable and predictable behavior for a conservative.

I would welcome more information on the subject. Rabinowitz's criticisms seem very tangential.

[WL-law]

Lots of errors by the reviewer, and here's one: she states:

Ms. Coulter has not just set about rehabilitating McCarthy as a martyr destroyed by anti-American leftists--she has also set about rehabilitating the most notorious of his cases, the kind dramatized in famous film clips of the period. Cases like that of Annie Lee Moss, a black code clerk who had lost her job at the Pentagon when she was hauled before McCarthy's committee as a security risk and Communist Party member. She had been confused with a different Annie Lee Moss, the witness explained--and who Karl Marx was she could not even say. So evident was Ms. Moss's confusion at what she was doing there that applause erupted in the hearing room when Democratic Sen. Stuart Symington declared he believed her.

But the evidence against Ms. Moss was not insignificant, the author of "Treason" now maintains. The code clerk had said there were two other people called Annie Lee Moss listed in the Washington phone book--whereas the two others were actually Anna Lee Moss and Annie Moss. Dynamite evidence, as far as Ms. Coulter is concerned--case closed. After all, an FBI report had identified her as a Communist.

This is terribly, damningly dishonest reviewing, as ant reader of Ann's book knows.

Ann makes the point, when discussing the Moss case, that
(1)although Moss claimed that there were other "Annie Moss"'s in the DC phonebook, the Communist Party newspaper and other literature were delivered to the witness Annie Moss's house, not the other Annie Moss'es, and that whenever the witness Annie Moss moved the subscriptions moved with her -- seemingly eliminating the possibility that they were mailed by mistake.
(2) Annie Moss worked in the most highly secret area in the Pentagon, where secret messages were decrypted, the code room -- and as Ann pointed out in the book, some of the interception/decryption programs were so secret that their existence was withheld from Truman! (because Truman was not deemed trustworthy).
(3) Annie Moss's claim that there were other Annie Moss'es was factually untrue and easily verifiable, but the unttruth was accepted by the investigating senators without any reasonable due diligence.

[Luke21]

And Reagan went to Bitburg and laid a wreath in a graveyard where Waffen SS were buried. It was one of the worst things he did as president. Does this make him an anti-semite? NO!!!

I dunno this Rabinowitz lady from Adam but she hates McCarthy like a typical leftist. I'm an eighty percenter about Ann's book. She makes grandiose statements saying Democrats are responsible for EVERY foreign policy disaster of the last century, and forgetting cold war black eyes such as the Simas Kidirka incident in 1970, which was a humiliation Richard Nixon should have been well ashamed of.
Ann also smears John and Bobby Kennedy one minute, while using them as heroes to defend McCarthy the next. The book isn't perfect, just excellent.

But on the whole it's an excellent polemic against the traitors and commie loving elites who smugly sold out America to the communists for a half century. It grabs them by the tail and doesn't let go. Bottom line is, Joe McCarthy was right and our own spooks couldn't trust FDR and Truman and Marshall and Atcheson at key points in the cold war. Stalin not only held the cards, he printed them, dealt them, and called the hands of the game.

Coulter correctly identifies liberalism with the full stench of Bolshevik loving smarminess and character assasination it utilizes. She deserves our applause.

[Miss Marple]

I have only made one comment on this thread because I have neither read Coulter's book nor am I familiar with the case of the SS men.

There seems to be a lot of anger on this thread directed at Ms. Rabinowitz, who has always seemed to me to be a pretty fair person. I like Ann Coulter's work and she is one of the few opinion writers who takes the time to footnote her work, so that one can go to the original sources.

Therefore, I take both Ms. Rabinowitz's criticism seriously and also am reserving judgement on Ms. Coulter. It could be nothing more than an error on the part of researchers, or it could be something serious. Likewise, Ms. Rabinowitz's criticism could be based on faulty information about the SS case.

I need more information, and will have to read Ann's book before I can make a decent judgement. However, I do not think calling Ms. Rabinowitz a leftist and similar insults because she has criticized Ann Coulter is helpful to the situation at all. Reasonable people can disagree.