The Letter the Wall Street Journal Refused to Run [ Evans defends Coulter against Rabinowitz]

http://www.anncoulter.org/refused.htm ^ | M. Stanton Evans

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The Letter the Wall Street Journal Refused to Run
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The Letter the Wall Street Journal Refused to Run

To The Editor:

A pretty good rule of thumb for judging media comment on Joe McCarthy is that people who most vociferously deplore him seldom know the facts of record.

Vide the recent Dorothy Rabinowitz piece in the Journal attacking Ann Coulter’s new book Treason and its McCarthy chapters. In her double-barreled blast against McCarthy/Coulter, Ms. Rabinowitz makes statements that indicate extensive ignorance of McCarthy’s doings and can but compound prevailing myths about him.

Treason!

Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War..., Coulter
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One need go no further to see the point than the first of the McCarthy cases Rabinowitz refers to, and that Coulter discusses in her book: The episode of Annie Lee Moss, the U.S. Army code clerk so memorably portrayed by Edward R. Murrow, and others, as a pitiful victim of McCarthy. Ms. Rabinowitz, sad to say, obviously knows nothing at all about this matter.

As it happens, there is a voluminous official record on the case, accessible to Ms. Rabinowitz and anyone else who cares to view it. This shows Mrs. Moss had been identified as a member of the Communist Party in the District of Columbia by FBI undercover agent Mary Markward, who had access to the party’s records. This information was passed on from the Bureau to the Army, which nonetheless promoted Mrs. Moss from cafeteria worker to code clerk, and security-cleared her for these duties.

The outrageous Joe McCarthy, if you can believe it, actually wanted to know how such a thing could happen. When Mrs. Moss appeared before him in March of 1954, she denied she was a communist, indicated she had never heard of Marx, and allowed that she was being confused with some other Annie Lee Moss who must have been the guilty party. This mistaken-identity theme was echoed by the Democrats on the panel, and has been repeated often since.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Moss and for such as Murrow, she inadvertently gave the game away in testifying--volunteering as one of her addresses 72 R St. S.W. in the District. This proved to be the crucial evidence in the case when, four years later, the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) obtained the records of the D.C. party, and there found an Annie Lee Moss, of 72 R St. S.W., listed as a member in the middle ‘40s. Thus Markward’s testimony was confirmed by the Communists’ own records, reflecting this particular Annie Lee Moss, and no other, as a party member.

Ann Coulter’s discussion of the case quite accurately sums up the foregoing information, while Rabinowitz -- though with Coulter’s book before her -- ignores it entirely. The Coulter-Markward-McCarthy version gets the matter exactly right; the Murrow-Senate Democrat-Rabinowitz version is wrong, as shown by an extensive record (the SACB revisited the case on a number of occasions).

The question of Annie Lee Moss is important in itself, as it is so often mentioned in discussions of McCarthy. However, it is even more important as a kind of template for his other cases -- Peress, Amerasia, the speech at Wheeling, Owen Lattimore, and many more. There can be no intelligible discussion of these matters without knowing what the facts are, and these won’t be found by re-cycling Edward R. Murrow’s version of our history.

Anyway, that’s already being handled by The New York Times. Faithful readers of your pages expect something better from the Journal.

M. Stanton Evans
Washington, DC

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[RobFromGa]

bump for truth

[vbmoneyspender]

usually, the WSJ editorial page is pretty good about running rebuttal letters like this one. I wonder why they didn't run it. I am a fan of both Rabinowitz and Coulter. I think they are both pretty sharp cookies and would like to see more give and take from them on this matter.

[gcruse]

The WSJ 'refuses' to run most letters to the editor.
Newspapers are like that.

[gunnedah]

Typical ploy of the Democrats today,when they are wrong they cover it up with lies and never admit the truth regardless of the facts. What makes them so much more powerful is that the so called "Mainstream Media" ignores the truth and helps perpetuate their lies and agenda. They always look subjectively at a situation and it only matters what they preceive and the truth never matters. Sad also is as long as they can keep a certain element of the population uneducated and not able to investigate for themselves they have at least 25% of the nation in their corner to start with following like sheep, then they spend an enormous amount of their time and our tax dollars attacking the truth and manipulating it.

[shrinkermd]

There is something about Coulter's appearance and presentation that always puts me off. To corrorborate my feelings and give them credence, I read Treason.

While the book is entertaining and, even hilarious, in parts, it is more of a history book than a political screed. I am old enough to havee met the Senator and recall the intense, hostile press he faced. Coutler's book is a masterpiece of inductive reasoning salted with spicey writing. When I went to college it would be called "Modern Civ."

I am grateful for her careful attention to detain and the very readible and followable endnotes. A good job no matter what you think about her!

PS: People who challenge and correct mistaken conventional wisdom are never appreciated --they are usually burned at figurative stake called public opinion.

[George W. Bush]

Coulter's book has a pretty obvious bias. And it probably should.

She has stimulated a re-examination of the era and all the lies the Left and libmedia like to spin about it.

Besides, Ms. Coulter has infuriated all the right people. That deserves some applause in itself.

[inkling]

It gets a little tiresome to hear Ann declare victimhood every time a conservative disagrees with her. I'm expecting her next book to be titled "TREASON!: Why Everyone in the Nation is a Traitor But Me."

And seeing as how the WSJ probably gets thousands of letters a day, I'm not scandalized that they "refused" to publish this letter. It's not a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy... it's called limited space.

Let's leave the victim card to the libs. Ann's a big girl; she should be able to handle different opinions.

[seenenuf]

Being a big fan and follower of Dorothy Rabinowitzs'
writing in the WSJ (especially her long and tedious work on the persecution of the accused in the McMartin child abuse case), I was shocked to read her column on Coulter and also wrote a letter to the editor. I wanted to point out that it was appearant that Rabinowitz was writing about Ann's book, without looking at her extensive footnotes/index. I think because of Rabinowitzs' age, she probably had a front seat and being young was swept up with the group think and her urbane buddys.
Dorothy Rabinowitzs is a respected talented lady, who goofed up this time.

[kylaka]

It gets a little tiresome to hear Ann declare victimhood

Care to point out one instance where Ann paints herself as a victim? It looks to me like she's always on offense, without much regard for who is offended.

[RaceBannon]

...

...

[IncPen]

ping

[Ole Okie]

I am a fan of both Rabinowitz and Coulter. I think they are both pretty sharp cookies and would like to see more give and take from them on this matter.

Them's my sentiments, also.

Both of the ladies can take care of themselves, and should be allowed to do pitched battle.

[hosepipe]

Coulter is a RINO exposeing machine.....
Due to her detail in working out her books and her footnotes. Her ideas can be easily researched. PC cowardice HATES THAT... They hate it SO much that it exposes them (to me). Since the entire democrat party is a lie and many/some republicans are really un-registered democrats Ann Coulters books tip over the chess board and say let a real dialog begin. The time for playing political games with TRAITORS has ended.. And its about damn time someone did that..

Buckley and others in their books were pretty much ignored. Ann CoulterStein is uniquely positioned (for some reason) to say again "Are you a communist/ socialist/ liberal/ Progressive/ Fellow traveler/ democracy espouser or any other kind of TRAITOR to the American Constitution, AND when did you become one"....
(McCarthy is ALIVE again, ITS ALIVE, ITS ALIVE) lol...

[inkling]

Care to point out one instance where Ann paints herself as a victim?

Posting a pro-Coulter letter on her Web site with the tag line "The Letter the Wall Street Journal Refused to Run." Of course it wasn't that the WSJ didn't have the space to run an unsolicited, column-length letter. Rather, it had to be a Vast RINO Anti-Coulter Conspiracy.

Coulter can be entertaining, especially when she so offends the norms of "polite" Manhattan liberalism (Ann vs. Katie Couric was a classic). Nevertheless, I respect Rabinowitz, David Horowitz and many other conservative writers far too much to label them all traitors simply because they disagree with Coulter's beatification of McCarthy.

[sauropod]

Love the icon ;-).

[sauropod]

I have been an admirer of Rabinowitz's work as well. I think Coulter is full of herself generally (a lot of successful people are), but she does good work in addition to being easy on the eyes.

Rabinowitz apparently goofed here and Coulter should have run a rebuttal column about it rather than put someone else's on her site. She's syndicated.

Would have had much bigger impact that way.

[kylaka]

Sorry. I don't see that as victimhood, just another brick in the wall. Daschle plays the part much better.

Coulter merely said Horowitz was wrong, and Horowitz has as much since agreed with her. I don't recall Ann ever saying or implying that those who disagree with her are traitors or treasonous.

Cripes. It won't be long before some editor (who hasn't read her book) starts off a review by calling her an "Arian" and uses swastikas for quote marks. The liberals are getting very shrill. Even the moderates are beginning to notice.

[thegreatbeast]

Did the WSJ NOT refuse to run Evan's letter?
Either cite a valid example of Ann Coulter shouldering the mantle of victimhood or stop tossing it about.
Coulter is not everybody's cup of tea, and needn't be, but be honest about your reasons.

[inkling]

The liberals are getting very shrill.

First off, Ann's whole act is shrillness. Second, by "the liberals" do you mean Dorothy Rabinowitz? The WSJ Editorial page?!

I guess what annoys me about these ersatz defenses of Coulter is their Buchanan-like absolutism. If you criticize St. Ann, you're a liberal and a traitor. A conservative isn't allowed to disagree with her for any reason since to do so would make that person a RINO/Liberal/Traitor.

If Ann is going to pad her generous bank account by constantly blasting others, she should have a little thicker skin when people reasonably disagree with her.