[martin_fierro]

I report, you decide.

[gr8eman]

It is true enough that there was nothing particularly wild-eyed about McCarthy, though that eerie giggle of his which tended to erupt at odd moments did have a certain out-of-this world pitch.

As usual, Annie's critics prove her material to be spot on!

[ricpic]

The cliche about the truth lying somewhere in the middle clearly applies here.

On the one hand McCarthy wasn't too scrupulous about riding the wave of hysterical overreaction to the communist threat that prevailed in the early '50s.

On the other hand a significant infiltration of government agencies, particularly The State Department, had in fact occured.

[randita]

Dorothy Rabinowitz is an excellent, thoughtful writer. Well researched and usually of a conservative nature. It's clear that Ann Coulter hit a nerve there. Ann must have criticized someone or something that D.R. holds dear in order to engender this kind of response.

[roderick]

Coulter's previous book, Slander is heavily sourced and footnoted. The reader is never faced with the question, "Gee, where did she get that?".

I can only assume that Treason is similarly sourced.

Ad hominem attacks and non-regard for her source material are not expected in a WSJ column.

[PGalt]

It is worth remembering that during that bleak political time the universities, faculties and students understood the threat McCarthyism posed to intellectual freedom -- and, dismal to note today, that the universities which were once hotbeds of opposition to McCarthy are now little worlds of their own, where political censorship, speech codes and other ideologically driven assaults on freedom are the accepted order of things.

So what you're saying Dorothy is that universities have always been hotbeds of assaults on freedom (truth). What the hell is intellectual freedom you moron?

There is more truth in an Ann Coulter book than in Dorothy the Dinosaur's entire professional career.

[ClearCase_guy]

Re: Annie Lee Moss:

Dynamite evidence, as far as Ms. Coulter is concerned -- case closed. After all, an FBI report had identified her as a Communist.

Rabinowitz makes a huge mistake so blithely dismissing this. As Coulter documents, a Communist newspaper had been delivered to Moss's home for years. Even when she moved, the subscription moved with her. Yet she claimed to have no idea who Karl Marx was. She was lying. There can be no doubt. And remember: she worked in the Code Room!! So, you've got a subscriber to a communist newspaper, working on codes, who lies in court about her politics.

Nothing to see here? Time to move on? Rabinowitiz has it very wrong folks. And, as usual, Ann Coulter has it very right. Read the book -- it's an eye-opener.

[Gothmog]

"...anywhere one turned on the TV screens last week there was the author of 'Treason' happily confronting wide-eyed interviewers wanting to know how she can say the things she says..."

Meanwhile, Hillary dodges all interviews, questions, etc.

My take on why Rabinowitz takes such offense with Coulters' intellectual and moral courage is that Rabinowitz is part of the media elite. She may be conservative on some issues, but all her lib friends and coworkers are (gasp) simply aghast.

Rabinowitz needs to trash Coulter (although she does a rather poor job here) in order to keep her station in the NYC media circles.

Coulter doesn't, so she is intellectually freer to investigate and uncover lib shibboleths.

[ex-snook]

Even today Communist supporters are still at it. People who refuse to answer or lie if they were Communists or Nazis should be thrown out of the country. Those that defend Communists are just as bad as those that defends Nazis. Nazis are still thrown out today for lying about membership. So should Communists.

[hosepipe]

TREASON seems to be exposeing RINOS at an alarming rate....
-OR- at an expected rate depending on you're position.

[dennisw]

bttttttttttttttt

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

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.

The issue, Coulter insists, is not whether McCarthy knew for certain that Moss was a spy or not. The issue is whether the risk of unfairly depriving Moss of a job she is doing faithfully is worse than the risk of having a Communist working in the code room at the Pentagon. I come down on the side of those who argue that there had to be, and indeed later there proved to be, some place to hire and pay Ms. Moss which did not entail the possibility that we were letting a Soviet spy walk barefoot through troves of highly sensitive information.

IOW, the burden of proof placed on McCarthy was wildly excessive under the circumstances. And according to the Venona decrypts, remember, the problem of Soviet agents working in the government was worse than McCarthy ever said it was.

[dark_lord]

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.

Either the writer only skimmed her book or is being deliberately deceptive. True, there were two other Anna or Annie Mosses in Washington. But -- it is also true that the code clerk (a) lived at the actual address in the FBI report while neither of the other two did, and (b) she received a Communist newspaper and had been receiving it for so long that every time she moved the subscription was changed to her new address.

Hmm...interesting additional pieces of evidence that this writer decided to drop, huh?

[furnitureman]

Lets Understand The U.N.{SPECIAL BULLETIN TO ALL MILITARY MEN AND VETERANS }MUST READ}http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b378b1d0e65.htm