Redefining McCarthyism; Coulter's bid to resell Joe as hero is a damnable lie

AZ Republic ^ | AZ Republic Editorial Staff

[hsmomx3]

Revisionist history. That's the kindest description you can give columnist Ann Coulter's attempt to portray Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy as an American hero.

But it's more accurate to call it a lie. A damnable one, at that.

But there it is, in black and white. In her columns and in her new book, Treason.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

McCarthy went after General George C. Marshall by seeking to paint him with a pink brush.

. . . in what Ann points out is a well-reasoned speech.

It is past time to seriously ask the question,

"If the Soviet Union was an Evil Empire (it was),

and FDR could take seriously a charge that a particular policy was "anti-Soviet" as a criticism (he did),

doesn't the fact that we faced the Cold War and still face a Communist China reflect any blame onto the the Roosevelt-Truman Administration?"

The Dumb Blonde

Slander blinded the wisest child,
no cry of "Treason!" made he.

Yet if truth be told,
The truth was told

And by a FOXy lady.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

What a vacuous denunciation of Ann's great book. Ann's point about "McCarthyism" being a fiction created and supported by the Left's lies is clearly illustrated by this article.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

McCarthyism means making reckless accusations and public smears without real evidence.

Like the Libs did and continue to do with McCarthy.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

The leftists are going to have a hard time disproving her facts.

Leftists could care less about facts--they simply fabricate their own to suit their position at the time. I have yet to see a Lefty (or former Lefty) assault on "Treason" that has stooped to arguing facts documented in Ann's endnotes.

[hsmomx3]

If you would like to send your comments to The AZ Republic, I've provided a link: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html

[Map Kernow]

Watching McCarthy in action, in the televised Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, turned McCarthy from the most feared senator in Washington to a man censured by his Senate colleagues, the people who knew him best.

Americans saw McCarthy as he was: cruel, reckless, unprincipled. With very little decency. They agreed with attorney Joseph Welch, who asked: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

One of the most satisfying passages in this most thoroughly satisfying book by Ann is where she exposes the above-referenced episode for the fraud it was. Welch had harangued McCarthy and Cohn for literally hours to name one person associated with subversive organizations on his staff (recall that Joe McCarthy is condemned today for "naming names," and "destroying lives" by doing so), and McCarthy finally responded by naming someone whom Welch himself had named to the NY Times a few weeks previously as a member of the National Lawyer's Guild, a organization Welch had conceded to the Times was a Communist front. Welch responded like the girlie man he was, screaming a non-sequitur about McCarthy's "decency."

And of course, the individual named was not "ruined"---far from it: he went on to become partner at Ropes & Gray, one of Boston's premier law firms. That parlor pink was never in any danger to his career---he knew it, Welch knew it, the chroniclers of the incident at the time and subsequently knew it. Now thanks to Ann's book "Treason," the American people will finally know it.

[Helms]

"Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".

Ann and David with "Baby Conservative". Sure the family has arguments, but always make up. After all there is a difficult World out there willing to imperil National and Economic Security. For they foreseeable future, a family must stay together.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with the way Ann Coulter used Treason and how it has been driving the Left even loonier.

She is essentially using tactics of the Left against the left. Heck she is out Moore-ing M. Moore and out Altermaning Eric Alterman. The 2000 Election put her and our pedal to the metal.

Bringing David Horowitz into this fight is detrimental to the degree we need both Ann and David. Just let the hype continue and the liberals loon on. WE REMAIN IN THE DRIVERS SEAT.

Some of us should consider placing her book on the ledge beneath the rear view windshield, facing those drivers behind us. Actually you can place the book on either the front or rear window ledges. This will be especially good for liberals driving larger vehicles that can look down upon the book. Make sure they keep a safe following distance.

Even if you don’t want to do the car thing, just take it to a local Starbucks or alternative type coffee house and sip and relax.

[Sonny M]

Kerry served in Vietnam, how many follow up with the fact that he threw his medals away during a war protest.

He didn't. The whole thing about him tossing his medals in the water was a sham. They weren't his medals, it was a publicity stunt, he openly admits they were not his metals now. For all we know they may have been props bought at a pawn shop or something.

[Map Kernow]

Some battles aren't worth re-fighting. Her take on McCarthy is simply not supported by the facts. McCarthy went after General George C. Marshall by seeking to paint him with a pink brush. Door Gunner Joe was a drunk who did a great deal of damage to the hunt for real communists within our government. Seeking to rehabilitate McCarthy is digging a deep hole for conservatism to fall into.

I can't have a better response to this left-wing drivel than Ann did in her new book. Someday if people like you are alive in 50 years---God forbid---, they'll be saying the same thing about Ken Starr and the Clinton impeachment: "Ken Starr was a repressed homosexual, a religious fanatic who tried to paint President Clinton as a sex harasser. He did a great deal of damage to conservatism blah blah blah..."

Sorry, Auntie em: Ann's "take" on McCarthy is copiously supported by the facts. Here's another fact for you: The truth is never impolitic. I applaud Ann for "refighting" the so-called "McCarthyism battle." Ann, you GO, girl!!! The rest of you, go buy and read Ann's book.

[em2vn]

I think in fifty years the proper response about Ken Starr and the Clinton impeachment will be that the Republicans didn't have the steel to burn Clinton's ass when they had the chance.
I stand by my statement concerning McCarthy's speech about Gen. Marshall. He used the same false rhetoric blaming the fall of China to the reds, on Gen.Marshall. The same false charges that he was throwing at many people. For that reason I said he hurt the search for actual communists within the government.

[Map Kernow]

I think in fifty years the proper response about Ken Starr and the Clinton impeachment will be that the Republicans didn't have the steel to burn Clinton's ass when they had the chance.

"Proper" response??? That's Rich---Frank Rich, that is. Why of course---except you won't read that "proper" response anywhere but in books by "cranks," etc.

I stand by my statement concerning McCarthy's speech about Gen. Marshall. He used the same false rhetoric blaming the fall of China to the reds, on Gen.Marshall.

What exactly was "false" about his rhetoric on Marshall? Give me chapter and verse, because there're those of us who do know about Marshall's sorry involvement in what eventually became quaintly referred to as the "loss" of China (not nearly as much a loss to America as to the Chinese people---tens of millions of them have paid with their lives for that "loss"). C'mon, Auntie Em---we're gonna turn the tables and do some "fact-checking" on YOUR "rhetoric."

The same false charges that he was throwing at many people.

Like what? Go ahead---NAME NAMES!

For that reason I said he hurt the search for actual communists within the government.

Yeah, how? By daring to raise the subject? Not letting it go? Again, be specific. Cite your sources. Otherwise, go away and be dormant for 50 years: you'll be needed at that time to express the "proper" view on Ken Starr, but not before then....

[Map Kernow]

Still no response? Still fact-checking?

Well, here: check this out. In 1974, the height of what could be called the "anti-McCarthyism era" (Nixon headed for impeachment as payback for his role in HUAC; Alger Hiss being readmitted to the Mass. Bar and otherwise rehabilitated; South Vietnam being abandoned to communist enslavement by our "non-treasonous" fellow Americans, the Democrats; and when the general "tone" of Washington Republicans was a sort of high-pitched, "bipartisan" mousy squeak), Kennedy courtier William Manchester published a history of the US from 1932 (FDR's election) to 1972 (Nixon's re-election) with the grandiose title "The Glory and the Dream" (and if you think Manchester is conservative, then your real name is Eric Alterman). He addresses specific charges made against George C. Marshall by Congressmen other than McCarthy, before McCarthy's famous Wheeling WVA speech.

Here's an excerpt from p. 491:

On February 21 [1948] Congressman John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts said that at Yalta a "sick" Roosevelt, on the advice of General Marshall and other chiefs of staff, "gave" the Kuriles and other strategic places to the USSR. The Administration [through George C. Marshall!] had tried to force Chiang into a coalition with Mao, he said. President Truman had treated Madame Chiang [on a futile visit she made to America to plead for more aid for the Nationalists in fighting the Communists] with "indifference," if not "contempt." The State Department had squandered America's wartime gains by listening to such advisers as Owen Lattimore of John Hopkins University. "This," Kennedy concluded, "is the tragic story of China, whose freedom we once fought to preserve. What our young men saved, our diplomats and our President have frittered away."

Geesh, I don't like that guy's TONE, do you? Oh, wait a minute---he's a Democrat...never mind...

Or how about this one further down the page on the subject of Gen. George C. Marshall:

[Senator] Jenner [of Indiana] called General Marshall "a front man for traitors," a "living lie" who had joined hands "with this criminal crowd of traitors and Communist appeasers who, under the continuing influence of Mr. Truman and Mr. Acheson, are still selling America down the river."

Somebody better tell that man to stop his "McCarthyite tactics," before he harms the cause of finding Communists in government!!! Didn't he know that Truman was a stalwart anti-communist?

Even liberals like Manchester could tell the truth back in 1974, the height of Watergate---why can't some putative "conservative Republicans" do so NOW?

[Map Kernow]

he went on to become partner at Ropes & Gray

That should be "Hale & Dorr," Boston's other premier law firm.

[Republican Wildcat]

McCarthyism never has referred to anti-communism. McCarthyism means making reckless accusations and public smears without real evidence

I've seen a lot of columns attacking Coulter's book with a similar argument. None of them have cited a single example to back up this assertion.

[em2vn]

"(Nixon headed for impeachment as payback for his role in HUAC"
President Nixon wasn't facing impeachment because of his role in HUAC. He was facing impeachment because of Watergate. I wish it hadn't happened but he was wrong in what he did in that mess.
Do you imagine that if General Marshall had been a communist he would have failed to pushed for greater freedom for Soviet forces in Europe and greater restrictions on allied forces there during WWII and immediately afterwards?
Kennedy's speech should not surprise one. Marshall as a life long Republican was viewed as an isolationist in contrast to the internationalist views of the Democrat party established under Roosevelt.

[Senator] Jenner [of Indiana] called General Marshall "a front man for traitors," a "living lie" who had joined hands "with this criminal crowd of traitors and Communist appeasers who, under the continuing influence of Mr. Truman and Mr. Acheson, are still selling America down the river."
A charge such as this is easily made but from history we can see that there isn't one bit of evidence to support such a claim. It is the blind panderings of a politician seeking to carve out a base of support from thin air.
The very real threat of communism was fertile ground for politicians such as Senator Jenner to exploit.
It's instructive to remember that we had just finished WWII. Our nation and the world were still struggling to return to a world of peace. Fear was very much in the air. The memory of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was vivid in the minds of Americans. Conspiracy real and imagined was daily fare. Feeding upon this fear was the stock in trade of Senator McCarthy and those of his stripe.
If General Marshall had been a communist he would have driven the Marshall Plan to failure and the nations of Western Europe into the Soviet camp.
Included among those trading on fear would have been Senator Kennedy, a man with presidential aspirations. For him to make the statements he did would only feed his name to a hungry public and add greater impetus in his drive for the White House.

"In 1974, the height of what could be called the "anti-McCarthyism era"
I can't imagine how this statement was ever constructed. By 1974 Senator McCarthy was ancient political history.He was as forgotten as Gary Condut is today.
If you want to examine the claims of American losing China you must research Henry Luce and his publishing empire. It was Luce, the son of missionaries in China, who first espoused the notion of America's loss of China. He rode the idea to tremendous magazine circulation.
I think Marshall and Truman both gave great credence to General MacArthur's admonition," never fight a war on mainland asia."
I simply don't agree with Anne Coulter's take on Joe McCarthy. I find her attempted defense of him to be ill-advised and factually unsupportable.

[Map Kernow]

"(Nixon headed for impeachment as payback for his role in HUAC" President Nixon wasn't facing impeachment because of his role in HUAC. He was facing impeachment because of Watergate. I wish it hadn't happened but he was wrong in what he did in that mess.

Yeah, right---no one at the time brought up Nixon's role in HUAC. Hiss' contemporaneous rehabilitation was just a coincidence. And you're a conservative Republican. Yep, I get it.

Do you imagine that if General Marshall had been a communist he would have failed to pushed for greater freedom for Soviet forces in Europe and greater restrictions on allied forces there during WWII and immediately afterwards?

How much "freedom" did you think the damn Soviets were allowed? Have you ever heard of Yalta???? Didn't you read what Kennedy said about what Marshall had accomplished there for the USSR???

Kennedy's speech should not surprise one. Marshall as a life long Republican was viewed as an isolationist in contrast to the internationalist views of the Democrat party established under Roosevelt.

Pure, shameless, mendacious "spin." Kennedy's point had nothing to do with Marshall's supposed Republicanism or "isolationism." It had everything to do with him selling out our country and our allies. Read the quote again, genius.

[Senator] Jenner [of Indiana] called General Marshall "a front man for traitors," a "living lie" who had joined hands "with this criminal crowd of traitors and Communist appeasers who, under the continuing influence of Mr. Truman and Mr. Acheson, are still selling America down the river." A charge such as this is easily made but from history we can see that there isn't one bit of evidence to support such a claim. It is the blind panderings of a politician seeking to carve out a base of support from thin air. The very real threat of communism was fertile ground for politicians such as Senator Jenner to exploit.

"Not one bit of evidence"? One more time: Marshall influenced FDR to give away the Kuriles, Eastern Europe to our Soviet "ally." He undermined our ally Chiang Kai-shek on a diplomatic mission where he was supposed to be "mediating" between Chiang and the communists. He helped block desperately needed aid to Chiang which helped the communists come to power, and go on to kill 50,000 of our precious young men in Korea. That's the evidence, Auntie Em.

It's instructive to remember that we had just finished WWII. Our nation and the world were still struggling to return to a world of peace. Fear was very much in the air. The memory of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was vivid in the minds of Americans. Conspiracy real and imagined was daily fare. Feeding upon this fear was the stock in trade of Senator McCarthy and those of his stripe.

A nice little fairy tale. Totally unfounded---how the hell does the attack on Pearl Harbor mean we were still afraid after we had reduced Japan to rubble by 1945? Who were we still afraid of, prevaricator, the Germans? They were destroyed too. The Russians? But we were told they were our "allies"---were STILL being told they were our allies by sundry useful idiots in the Truman Administration. Some people, like Kennedy, like Jenner, like Luce, were ringing the alarm bells, but not enough people were listening, certainly not in the Truman Administration.

If General Marshall had been a communist he would have driven the Marshall Plan to failure and the nations of Western Europe into the Soviet camp.

The Marshall Plan was originally offered to the Soviet Union too FYI, and the nations of Western Europe damn near did fall to the Soviets.

Included among those trading on fear would have been Senator Kennedy, a man with presidential aspirations. For him to make the statements he did would only feed his name to a hungry public and add greater impetus in his drive for the White House.

"Senator"? Didn't you read my quote? He was in the House at the time---wasn't elected senator for years after 1948. So you think he made his charge merely for the sake of his political ambitions, eh? A charge levelled squarely at his own party's Administration---do you think he was planning to run for President as an "isolationist Republican," Einstein? Looks like you're willing to aim your cheap smears at JFK, too.

"In 1974, the height of what could be called the "anti-McCarthyism era" I can't imagine how this statement was ever constructed. By 1974 Senator McCarthy was ancient political history.He was as forgotten as Gary Condut is today.

You "can't imagine" because you're an ignorant liberal Democrat trying to pass yourself off as a conservative Republican---it's an old Saul Alinsky trick, just executed much, much more convincingly by people other than yourself. Your invocation of Gary "Condut" is very telling, but I won't tell a faker like you how.

If you want to examine the claims of American losing China you must research Henry Luce and his publishing empire. It was Luce, the son of missionaries in China, who first espoused the notion of America's loss of China. He rode the idea to tremendous magazine circulation.

Yeah, Auntie Em---this "loss of China" thing was just a circulation ploy dreamed up by Luce. Uh-hunh.

I think Marshall and Truman both gave great credence to General MacArthur's admonition," never fight a war on mainland asia."

Mmmm-hmmm. Just don't mention HOW they "gave great credence" to it, especially since MacArthur never used the quote you attribute to him, lying liberal Democrat faker.

I simply don't agree with Anne Coulter's take on Joe McCarthy. I find her attempted defense of him to be ill-advised and factually unsupportable.

And we're back where we started. You don't agree with Ann's "take" on McCarthy, but you can't supply any factual refutation of that "take." I'm convinced you're a liar and a faker. Go away.

[Torie]

My comment was, "no comment," which is a comment. The woman is infra dig to me, unworthy of comment.

[Pharmboy]

We should not back down ONE BIT this time around. In the fifties, they controlled ALL the media; now, their monopoly is gone. We must fight them on the beaches, on cube farms, on op-ed pages, at dinner parties, etc. Wherever we find them spewing their lies, tell them that all the evidence that has come to light proves Joe right and them wrong..

Tailgunner Joe had to use unorthodox methods to shine the light on the cockroaches. They're still b*tching...

[em2vn]

Do you have any idea how much like a revisioinist liberal you are sounding. If there is disagreement with you then it is time for name callling and questioning of a person's character. That is right out of the Hillary Clinton play book. One can only be a conservative if they adhere to your orthodoxy. What a dumb ass liberal approach to politics.

"Yeah, right---no one at the time brought up Nixon's role in HUAC. Hiss' contemporaneous rehabilitation was just a coincidence." What's the connection you are making? Watergate was a plot to get Hiss rehabilitated? To the best of my knowledge Hiss has never been rehabilitated, whatever that term means in this case.

Are you aware that the Soviets were kept out of Turkey and Greece and forced out of Austria, Germany was divided. Communists were dismounted in Italy. Was this all part of the grand Communist plan to conquer Europe?

If you think you establish what constitutes a conservative you can just pucker up on my back side pal. If my disagreeing with your take on a nutlog like McCarthy is causing you so much distress, great. Did you ever study or think about the senator before "Treason"? I imagine you didn't. I have studied that era of American history and find Anne Coulter's take on the issue to be in error. Remember this, she is trying to sell books, period. Anne Coulter is simply our version of Hillary Clinton. She is as self absorbed and arrogant as Hillary. She wouldn't p23s on one of us if we were on fire. Anne trys to use us as much as Hillary uses her fawning crowds.

[Map Kernow]

No more to say to you, pal, till you back up your charges with facts. You claimed McCarthy had used "false rhetoric" against George C. Marshall and "others." You claimed Ann's "take" on McCarthy was "unsupported" by the facts. You have failed to respond to my challenge that you provide the basis for these charges---craven liberal that you are---instead resorting to the "kiss my ass" sewer level of "argumentation." Go kiss it yourself, Mickey Mouse. Ann's laughing at "conservatives" like you all the way to the bank, God bless her.