|
Author: Ann Coulter
 
See it on Amazon
 To refer to Treason as "the McCarthy book" is a crime. Granted, half of the book is used to retell the story of Joe McCarthy, but the rest covers other topics such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War.
The real point of this book is to demonstrate how the Democrats have found themselves siding with the enemy in the past 50 years of International conflicts.
Coulter makes a strong case starting with Joe McCarthy's pursuit of exposing communists in the US Government. She's not too opinionated on the man other than stating that "Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie." I love her subtlety.
She's right though. When it comes down to it, what do people really know about McCarthy? He was a guy in the 1950's that started accusing people of being communists, scared the crap out of everyone, and thousands of lives were ruined. This analysis couldn't be further from the truth.
Coulter takes a very radical view on McCarthy. Not only does she state that McCarthy never unjustly accused anyone of being a Communist, but it is because of McCarthy that we laugh at Communists today. There was a Communist infiltration in the US Government and it was McCarthy who pushed the momentum to route them out.
I've spent the past two months doing my own research and I can't prove her wrong. Regardless of what you think of McCarthy, the guy was right.
Coulter has a lot of ammo to back up her points including a 38-page bibliography. In addition, there is the Venona Project that was declassified in 1996 and proved what McCarthy was screaming. Some of the people thought to be innocent were spies for Communist Russia after all.
Lies about McCarthy
Sadly, McCarthy's legacy is clouded in falsehoods. McCarthy never caused anyone to commit suicide, he supported civil rights for blacks, John F Kennedy supported him the year of his censure, and Bobby Kennedy asked him to be the godfather of his first child.
Who knew?
The recent Oscar nominee, Good Night and Good Luck, is about a journalist exposing McCarthy for "falsely" accusing people of being communist spies. The damnedest thing is that the journalist was close friends with a communist spy.
It's important to keep in mind that "communist spy" refers to someone who was acquiring sensitive information for Stalin. Stalin is the guy that was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 50 million Russians.
While the press and the Senate managed to take McCarthy down, they defended guys who were spying for Stalin. It's a little baffling how no one really cares about this point.
The amount of unknowns and misconceptions about Joe McCarthy is enough to write several books about, but Coulter has managed to narrow it down to half a book.
More than 50 years of siding with America's enemies
Coulter has found a trend in the past 50 years. She correctly points out "It is a curious fact that the most ridiculed public figures in America in the twentieth century have been those who posed the gravest threat to Communism: Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Whittaker Chambers, and Ronald Reagan."
All of them were tirelessly assaulted by the media and all of them contributed something to hindering the advancement of Communism. Coulter chronicles all their endeavors.
Aside from the conspiracy to humiliate anti-communists, Coulter does believe that Democrats have contributed something to foreign policy: "the Democrats have been responsible for every unmitigated foreign policy disaster since World War II." From FDR and Truman hob-knobbing with Stalin to Democrats swearing Reagan was going to bring forth World War III, this book chronicles how Communism was defeated and how certain Americans fought against the process every step of the way.
Refreshing, entertaining, but not new
Ann Coulter is on the far right-side of right-wing beliefs and she's entertaining as hell. Although her views on McCarthy are refreshing, they're not new. One example is a 1987 article published in The New American. This article is an extensive Q and A that covers many of the misconceptions around McCarthy. A lot of it has found its way into Coulter's book.
While these beliefs are not new, they are also not in the mainstream by a long shot. Correcting over 50 years of misinformation is not the easiest task, but this book takes a worthy stab at it.
Any fan of Ann Coulter will certainly enjoy this book and learn about some things in the last half of the 20th Century that will shock them. Regardless of your love or hate for the author, this book will inspire any American to research little-known history about McCarthy. This woman is bold, intelligent, and has no interest in coddling the enemies of America.
I will close with Coulter's response to those concerned with getting America's enemies to like America: "One could mine every war-making text throughout history - Sun Tsu, Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Thayer Mahan - without finding a single reference to being liked by your enemies as a tactic associated with winning a war."
Related links
Book Review: How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) |
