Free Republic

The trouble with so many of Ann Coulter's critics is they're conspicuously ill-informed. Take for instance, their attacks on the late Sen. Joe McCarthy, the legendary anti-Communist she champions in her current best seller, Treason. When Fox News's Bill O'Reilly said McCarthy "demonized people who didn't deserve to be demonized," Coulter shot back: "Name one." O'Reilly balked for a moment, then boldly proclaimed: "I'll name one. Dalton Trumbo." O'Reilly was breathtakingly mistaken. When Coulter countered McCarthy "had nothing to do with Trumbo," O'Reilly blithely compounded his error. "Sure, he did," he said, and then plowed ahead, "It was a House...

In her latest column, Ann Coulter took issue with a recent piece by Arnold Beichman in which he was critical of her new book Treason, particularly her defense of former Sen. Joe McCarthy. In response to the Coulter article, Arnold Beichman wrote the following letter to HUMAN EVENTS and asked that it be considered for publication. In the interest of fairness, as both columnists are respected conservative voices, the letter from Mr. Beichman follows. To HUMAN EVENTS: I want to make a short comment on Ann Coulter's attack on me. First, she ignores my disclosure that Joe McCarthy accepted Communist...

<p>"Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason."</p> <p>"The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Sen. Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name."</p>

For those of you who don't have the time or the inclination to read Mona Charen's excellent book, Useful Idiots, yes, the book I recommended to you in this space a couple of weeks ago, you can take the short course: read Arnold Beichman's succinct essay on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin. Mr. Beichman covers those useful idiots who could not or would not see the enormity of the famine deliberately caused in the Soviet Union in 1932-1933, somewhere around 5,000,000 lives. Walter Duranty reported it falsely to his useful idiot bosses at the New...