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This may come as a surprise to some of you out there that have never seriously studied history or politics in an academic setting but simply having footnotes doesn't mean a given work is magically accurate.

And now you play the part of the fool.

You repeat the charge without addressing my question about an example of a specific inaccuracy or two.

As for you hoity-toity comment about those who have never studied history in an academic environment, let me assure you that I have. Unless you make you living as a college history professor, I doubt you read as much academic history as I do. We're not all ignoramuses here at FR.

I haven't read Coulter's book yet. (My copy is supposed to arrive tomorrow.) And I haven't read anything that this guy Sullivan has written. To be honest I've never really been that interested in McCarthy, maybe because I've bought the conventional wisdom about the guy. Lots of "noted scholars" are wrong about lots of things though, and they can get downright catty when someone comes along and destroys the basis of their supposed expertise.

So I'll start reading Coulter's book this week. If just one of you naysayers had cited two specific errors she made in the book, I probably wouldn't have ordered it.

ML/NJ

You'll enjoy the book. The last chapter deals with the supposed anticommunism of Truman. He was forced into it when the GOP won a landslide election in 1946, much the same way Clinton was forced to sign welfare reform after the GOP landslide in 1994. And even then, Truman delayed, dodged and danced. When he fired McArthur, effigies of Truman were burned across America, millions turned out for parades in support of McArthur and polls showed only 36% favored his dismissal. Coulter cites liberal after liberal who have twisted history to make the man who lost China into a staunch anticommunist.