The Trouble with Treason (David Horowitz regarding Ann Coulter)

Frontpagemagazine.com ^ | 7/8/03 | David Horowitz

[XJarhead]

I agree. Ann does nothing more than preach to the converted. How does that help the conservative cause? We jump all over Dems who say stupid things, and then she makes ridiculous statements like women shouldn't have the right to vote. I've never met a single person who has been persuaded by anything she's said. All you get is the "woof woof woof" from those who already agree with her positions. Big deal.

[hoosiermama]

For the years the dems have gotten by with name calling....Intimidation. McCathyism, VRWC come to mind. Ann is just standing up to it. (Bring em on) She has a rebutal, no more silence. Ann has........

and she's doesn't care if they attack her. Might even enjoy being the lightening rod. Certainly not going to be bullied.

"Yeah! I support McCathy and I'm part of the VRWC so what are you going to do about it, Pinko? she spouts as she takes off her cape!
(Do we know any good cartoonist?

[Kathleen]

I watched the Chris Matthews interview. He was not his usual hard-charging self, but rather quiet as he asked those damning questions

Chrissy introduced Ann as a "propagandist". He conducted himself like the rude, boorish, rapid-fire clymer that he is, and Ann rendered him impotent. Perhaps we were watching different shows.

[VRWC_minion]

Bomb throwers stir up trouble that the sane have to put right.

Bomb throwers are prophets like Jesus Christ as well as politicians like Newt Gingrich.

[TheDon]

"Ann does nothing more than preach to the converted. How does that help the conservative cause?"

To say that "Treason" targets only conservatives is incorrect. Hate to break it to you, but books that target conservatives rarely make it into the top ten nationwide. "Treason" more likely targets moderates first, then conservatives. From what I've read on FR, many conservatives need to read "Treason" just to cleanse the brainwashing of public education and too much network news from their minds.

"We jump all over Dems who say stupid things, and then she makes ridiculous statements like women shouldn't have the right to vote."

Actually we jump all over Dems for taking comments out of context and using them to critize others. Are you going to tell us that she made this comment in seriousness, or do you think she was kidding to make a point? Remember now, this is Ann we are talking about. :)

"I've never met a single person who has been persuaded by anything she's said. All you get is the "woof woof woof" from those who already agree with her positions. Big deal."

You must live in a rather small world. And you would have to have a rather small mind to think that if you have not experienced it, it hasn't happened. Perhaps it's just the people you choose to mingle with.

[DPB101]

As I remember, she was at her worst when talking about Norman Mineta's experience as an internee during the Second World War (he was 10 at the time). She deliberately minimized it, denigrated him, went out of her way to insult all the internees, and was just a complete stone witch about it.

That really turned me off - coming from a woman with no children.

This is all Coulter wrote on that subject:

Mineta obstinately refused to consider a relevant airport screening procedure on the grounds that fifty years earlier another Democrat had put him in and internment camp. "I remember on the 19th of May 1941"--note that he remembers that day--"when we boarded the trains in San Jose under armed guard, the military guard. I was in my Cub Scout uniform carrying a baseball, baseball glove and a baseball bat. And as I boarded the train, the MPs confiscated the bat on the basis it could be used as a lethal weapon." A guard took Mineta's baseball bat as a child, and as a result he was subjecting all of America to the Bataan Death March. Someone should have sent him a baseball bat.

There was no principled basis for opposition to using Arab appearance as a factor in airport screening procedures. The whole country knew that goosing little old ladies boarding planes was not making us any safer.
Treason page 264

[TheDon]

Amen, and amen. One was crucified literally, the other rhetorically.

[flamefront]

Good point -
theatrics were 'almost the only weapon the commitee possessed.'

We now need to understand both Horowitz's and Coulter's present-day value of theatrics.

All-in-all Horowitz's last two sentences tell his whole story here IMO:

Making such discriminations is important, and to the extent that she hasn?t made them Ann Coulter opens herself to the criticisms that have been leveled against her. But in the long run, this will turn out to be a lesser fault than emphasizing the wrong problem or promoting America's enemies as America's victims - which is what her liberal antagonists have done.

I think they both approve of theatrics as a political weapon.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

She said more - a lot more - on the radio. Was as deliberately offensive as she could be.

[Scenic Sounds]

Perhaps he wanted to appear "objective"?

Could be, but I think it's a bit too late in Horowitz's career to go the "objective" route. His audience will never stand for it. LOL. ;-)

[ICX]

Like when she said she preferred trains to planes because she didn't like "being felt up by a bunch of drunk, educable retards"? HAHAHA!!!

I just started reading Treason, and I love it. I woke my entire house up when I read the line, "If Irving Berlin was alive today, he'd pen a patriotic song like "So Long Walla Walla, I'm off to Smash Allah." I was HOWLING. I think a lot of her humor gets overlooked because she's so sarcastic, which is unfortunate - she gets taken as a lot further to the right than she really is.

[Scenic Sounds]

Yeah! Even the packaging

I think Ann's done a great job. ;-)

[Pres Raygun]

He doesn't like Ann saying that all Democrats are unpatriotic liberals.

I think you may be on to something. Horowitz was rasied by communist parents. As an adult he realized his parents were wrong. I suspect that he believes his parents although wrong, nonetheless had good intentions and therefore were good people. The premise of Coulter's book, destroys this defense of his parents, because it demonstrates that those who were sympathetic to communists even out of good intentions were for all practical purposes acting treasonously. It appears to me that the attacks on Treason are not based on debating the facts she presents, but on challenging her premise that those who attacked McCarthy were essentially aiding the enemy which is by definition treason. Chris Matthew's interview of Ann was a clear example of this approach. Her critics, by focusing on her premise that supporting the enemy is treasonous regardless of motive, are tacitly agreeing with her that Democrats for the last 50 years have been wrong on almost every foreign policy issue. Consequently she has scored a major victory for our side. Matthews was by the way an ass and Ann handled herself as well as anyone could under the circumstances.

[Steel Wolf]

I agree that MAD is a very effective policy when dealing with a rational opponent. It's still in effect today, albiet in a very mild form.

I'd even go so far as to say that it would work on North Korea or Islamists up to a point. Kim Jong Il is all about survival. He won't attack us unless all is lost, and he wants to hurt us before he goes down. For the Islamists, I think they understand now that 9-11 has hurt them far, far worse than it hurt us. If they were to destroy an American city, the proportional backlash would be legendary.

I'm all about keeping our enemies off balance and on the run, its actually quite impressive how we've kept up our pressure on so many fronts. Terrorist cells are being rolled up and driven out of their sanctuaries, and Iran and North Korea and cornered and isolated. The Middle East has been put on notice, and Old Europe has been put in its place.

[hoosiermama]

think a lot of her humor gets overlooked because she's so sarcastic, which is unfortunate - she gets taken as a lot further to the right than she really is.

Many time her "quotes" and taken out of context from her sarcasm/humor. She "Off the wall" and folks want to take her seriously. Then she's serious and they don't know how to take her. I laughed all the way through the book....Some great one liners....

[BohDaThone]

Ooops. I confess error. I was thinking of his affair with Inga Arvad, in the early 1940s. SHE was a Nazi agent. You are quite correct on Rometsch. [So many women, ....]

[hoosiermama]

Are you suggesting that Horowitz has an agenda? NAW!

[BohDaThone]

I confess error. I had Rometsch confused with Inga Arvad, a woman who Kennedy had an affair with in the early 1940s. SHE was a Nazi Agent. ["So many German women, so little . . . .?]

[BibChr]

Matthews was by the way an ass ....

Wellnow, THERE's stop-the-presses news! (c8

Good points, that may be the case. Talk to me 10, 11 years ago — pre-Clinton, in other words — and I'm prepared to give SOME Demo's a break. Now, since Clinton and everything that's followed, anyone who's still a Democrat has 'splaining to do that I honestly do not think can be done.

Dan

[TheDon]

Must be flirting then, LOL!