Patrick J. Buchanan: Of "Treason" and Tailgunner Joe

WND.com ^ | 07-16-03 | Buchanan, Patrick J.

[Theodore R.]

Of 'Treason' & Tailgunner Joe

Posted: July 16, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

In the 1968 campaign, when Hubert Humphrey said he would end the bombing of North Vietnam, Spiro Agnew said Hubert was "soft on communism." A media firestorm erupted over such "McCarthyism."

Yet, in 1948, Harry Truman had so savaged Tom Dewey that the New York Times ran this headline: "President Likens Dewey to Hitler as Fascist Tool." Was Harry called to account? No. His "Give-'em-Hell-Harry" campaign remains a glorious episode in the archives of liberalism.

Point: What the Left calls McCarthyism – smearing an enemy on false or non-existent information – has been its stock-in-trade since the Left invented the term to destroy its great antagonist, the ex-Marine and Wisconsin senator known as Tailgunner Joe.

This is a theme of Ann Coulter's brave book, "Treason," which is a heroic defense of that most reviled of patriots. Joe had his flaws and made his mistakes, but on the century's great issue – the mortal struggle between America and the evil empire of Lenin and Stalin for control of mankind's destiny – Joe was right and his enemies worse than wrong.

Some were traitors, other tolerated treason, others were derelict in their duty to root it out of the republic. And, in part, because of treason and Establishment blindness to it, the fruits of America's victory in World War II were lost. Stalin was allowed to swallow up Eastern Europe, Mao – the greatest mass murderer in history – seized China by the throat, and Moscow got the atom bomb.

There are three great questions to ask about Joe McCarthy:

First, was Joe right that FDR and the New Dealers were as soft on Stalin as Neville Chamberlain had been on Hitler?

Yes. At Tehran, FDR ceded Poland to Stalin, the nation for which Britain had gone to war, asking only that he not let the word out until after the 1944 election, as FDR needed Polish votes. At Yalta, FDR ceded 10 Christian countries to Moscow, including the Baltic republics Stalin had acquired in his devil's pact with Hitler.

Truman called Stalin "Good Old Joe." When Churchill sought to rouse America with his Iron Curtain speech, Truman, according to his biographer, David McCullough, sent "a letter offering to send the [USS] Missouri to bring [Stalin] to the United States and promising to accompany him to the University of Missouri so that he might speak his mind, as Churchill had." Talk about groveling appeasement.

Second, were the FDR-Truman administrations shot through with traitors? Yes, even more deeply than we knew. Alger Hiss and Lawrence Duggan of the State Department were not only communists but Soviet spies, as was White House aide Lauchlin Currie; Treasury's No. 2 Harry Dexter White, father of the IMF; Judith Coplin, who headed up a spy ring at Justice; and William Remington at Commerce. The atom bomb project was saturated with Stalin's spies, like the Rosenbergs.

Third, was America gripped by a McCarthy-induced "hysteria" in the 1950s? Total nonsense. In Gallup polls of the era, not 1 percent of Americans ever considered "anti-communist hysteria" or McCarthyism to be great concerns. Those afraid of Joe were those who had reason to be afraid – for what they had done or failed to do.

The great failing of conservatives, Whittaker Chambers wrote, is that they do not retrieve their wounded. Ann Coulter is not that kind of conservative. Her gutsy decision to argue the case for the most hated enemy of the American Establishment shows true grit and an instinctive sense that the Right cannot, must not, cede the writing of history to its adversaries.

On Joe, Coulter is right. McCarthy was more sinned against than sinning, a better patriot and man than those who brought him down, or deserted him in his hour of need, or those who turn their backs on him today, because the social price of saying a kind word over his grave would be too high.

No other American did more to rouse the nation to fury over the Left's failure to confront, and battle, the 20th-century's greatest enemy of freedom. No man did more to horsewhip out of town the New Deal-Fair Deal Democrats who had frittered away the fruits of victory. In 1952, Republicans swept the House, Senate and White House, and it was Joe McCarthy who led the bayonet charge.

That is why Joe is hated. Not for what he did wrong, but for what he did right. America's young should ask themselves: If Joe McCarthy was such a monster, why did Joe Kennedy back him, the Kennedy girls date him, Robert Kennedy work for him and JFK defend him as a "great patriot" in his year of censure? And why was McCarthy asked to be the godfather to Bobby Kennedy's firstborn?

The postwar era in America was indeed Scoundrel Time, but the scoundrels were the ones Joe was after. And Ann Coulter is a public defender who believes that if the verdict of history is a lie, she will appeal it till hell freezes over. And conservatives should be filing amicus briefs, not hiding in the tall grass.

[Pharmboy]

Thanks for the ping...bookmarked for later reading. Anne has really started something, huh? I love the smell of sputtering liberals in the morning.

[decimon]

How many more did he get re-elected because he made anticommunists look like flaming nutcases?

I agree. I was young at the time (born 1945) but I recall some of the nutjobs who were feeling their oats at that time. Anything not straight from the JBS handbook was "pinko."

I don't know if McCarthy was sincere or politically expedient but his effect was counterproductive, IMO.

[MEG33]

What year are you speaking of?

[BushCountry]

The truth is somewhere in the middle I suspect. Every pol is a political opportunist, that is their job and rightly so! I want my pols to take opportunities to promote my causes.

To steal a line from Pat, McCarthy was more sinned against than sinning. Any person who attempted to stand-up against the communist supporters and liberal left would have been pillard. Every statement, every action, every utterance would have been taken out of context. You are only fooling yourself if you believe there could have been a right way.

Recent examples: Bork, Clarence Thomas, Lott, Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Ronald Reagan, etc...

[BushCountry]

And if he would have sat on the sidelines?

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
Dante Alighieri

[I_Love_My_Husband]

TJ: Thanks for the ping!!!!

All: This is fantastic!! And I'm too young to have lived through those years, but what's great is that Buchanan remembers those years and can shed light on the truth of what happened!!

Someone on this thread mentioned Nixon and said "look what happened to him"...yes, by 1968 the RAT's had way too much power and had successfully turned America against McCarthy.

I know when I went to school the official history books had said terrible things about him. You can only imagine what they (liberals) are teaching kids nowadays, if they even bother to teach American History. I know here in SF, it's about all about how great the Turd World is and how White People are the worst people on earth.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ann Coulter's brave book, "Treason," . . . is a heroic defense of . . . [the] most reviled of patriots.

. . . Her gutsy decision to argue the case for the most hated enemy of the American Establishment shows true grit and an instinctive sense that the Right cannot, must not, cede the writing of history to its adversaries.

Commercial journalism is the profession of using mass media for influence and profit; its claims of objectivity are self-serving and utterly fatuous.

Ann makes the point that the "McCarthyism" "scollarship" propaganda is all based on secondary sources written by McCarthy's enemies rather than on primary sources.

The objectivity of journalism is bunk--and to the extent that "Journalism is the first draft of history," Henry Ford was precisely right about history.

McCarthy was . . . a better patriot and man than . . . those who turn their backs on him today because the social price of saying a kind word over his grave would be too high.

Is that the shoe that fits??

Ann Coulter is a public defender who believes that if the verdict of history is a lie, she will appeal it till hell freezes over. And conservatives should be filing amicus briefs, not hiding in the tall grass.

The Emperor's New Clothes
and the "Dumb" Blonde

Slander beguiled
the wisest child;
no cry of "Treason" made he.

Yet truth be told,
the truth was told--
and by a FOXy lady.

[Tribune7]

Alger Hiss was at FDR's side at Tehran.

[dix]

I also believe his soviet code name was "crook". Every-time the dissenters start one of their diatribes about McCarthy, and you come back at them I have a nice chuckle.

On the subject of Nixon besides the Hiss trial the lib/commies despised him for destroying the commie leaning Helen Douglas in one of his early campaigns in California. My red diaper baby neighbor still brings it up.

[decimon]

What year are you speaking of?

Not year but years.

I'm not sure why that would matter.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Anne's book, Treason, I think, is going to make a difference, by popularizing the ideas that many of us have known already. Maybe in the same way that Elvis Presley and the Beatles popularized black rhythm and blues and made it mainstream. Most of these ideas didn't orginate with Anne, but she makes them accessible to a mainstream audience and in so doing changes the focus and premise of not just the historical debate but the current one. And her book comes at a perfect time after everyone could witness for themselves the lengths to which the left will go to destroy America. After 9/11 and the attacks on Bush by the left, Anne's audience his primed for her to make her points, which she does very well.

I think this book is going to make a difference.

[ricpic]

A great deal of the tragedy that followed WW II had as much to do with Roosevelt's and even Truman's distrust of the Brits as it did with sympathy for the USSR.
When the American troops didn't race across Germany but waited for the Russians to take Berlin it was partly as a reward to a "gallant ally," but it was also partly resistance to what Roosevelt considered Churchill's imperialist scheming against the Russkies.
After the war did the American people really have the stomach to take on the Russians even when it became obvious that they were gobbling up Eastern Europe? I doubt it. We didn't want to be imperialists like the Brits had been. And we were just plain war weary. The great passion of the late 40's and early 50's was in the returning GIs to get on with making a life; a civilian life.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

One thing I find curious and was wondering if anyone had any comments.

I was watching the history channel the other night which talked about how the US (and I think Britain as well) sent troops to Russia in 1917 to assist the White Russians in their (unsuccesful) effort to defeat the Bolsheviks.

I wonder what percent of Americans if asked, would know about this fact.... it seems to be a historical fact that has disappeared down the memory hole (at least so it seems to me).

It would appear that the influences that would rewrite the history of the 50's are also at work in whitewashing the history of the early 1900's. Or am I missing something here?

[FreedomPoster]

I can't wait to take a look at my son's Government text for next year (H.S. senior in the Fall). If it uses "McCarthyism" in the Orwellian sense, I'll be having a friendly chat with some teachers. It's a private school, so I think I'll be reasonably well-received.

[TheDon]

"And Ann Coulter is a public defender who believes that if the verdict of history is a lie, she will appeal it till hell freezes over. And conservatives should be filing amicus briefs, not hiding in the tall grass."

Great line.

[TheDon]

Huh?

[TheDon]

"McCarthy was the victim of the first liberal-communist Borking in my memory. It's had a tremendous impact on me. I wish you'd be specific about some of his FREQUENT incorrect allegations."

I'm always waiting to here the same myself.

[TheDon]

It is sad to see so many liberal, and communist, talking points being uttered on FR, by FReepers no less!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[TheDon]

..."but he doesn't overcome the suspicion that McCarthy made reckless claims and ultimately hurt the anti-communist cause at home and abroad."

Get examples? (tm)

"I get the feeling Coulter is riding high on the emotions of the moment and not looking at the deeper problems and consequences that highly politicized ages bring with them."

If you read "Treason" you can't help but say she is looking at the "deeper problems" and the "consequences".