Ann Coulter's Treason is a difficult book to read. Not because the subject is too dense or complex or because it is one we would rather avoid. No, the book is difficult because it is an angry, hyperbolic, disorganized, and disorienting rant - one that goes on for almost three hundred pages.
Coulter's look at post-World War II American history is a mix of revisionism, satire, and polemics. Her basic premise is that liberals are not misguided but well-intentioned idealists but instead, traitors who hate their country and oppose it at every turn. In attempting to make this rather controversial point she touches on everything from espionage in the Roosevelt (FDR) administration to the attacks on (the current) President Bush; from Alger Hiss and Whitaker Chambers to racial profiling after 9/11. Although she moves in a roughly chronological direction she jumps back and forth between time periods with abandon.
It is a wild ride but one that leaves you exhausted rather than persuaded. The underlying problem with Coulter's approach is an attempt to overturn a simplistic and warped view of history with an equally simplistic and warped view of history. The failure of large parts of the left to see communism for what it really was - a totalitarian ideology that brought death and destruction in its path - is a serious issue. It is an issue that has not been dealt with in any real way by large swaths of the culture and by much of elite opinion in this country. And that is a problem, but Treason takes that issue and smothers it in over-the-top rhetoric and confusion. Coulter has many valid points to make but her ability to communicate the message to anyone not already on her side is severely limited by her imprecision and her sophomoric tone and language.
It is important to note, however, that buried underneath all of this rhetoric is a number of valid points. Coulter is absolutely correct to point out that Joseph McCarthy was not the dangerous ogre and destroyer of lives that he is made out to be by the media and in all too many textbooks. In fact, McCarthy was right in his essential point that the American government failed to take Communist infiltration and espionage seriously enough. McCarthy's main failing was his inability to be precise and not over-reach knowing that the media and elite establishment would do anything to cut him down. In one of her better chapter conclusions Coulter asks a valid question:
Maybe it would have been better if McCarthy had been more measured in his rhetoric. And maybe it would have been better if Ken Star had the savoir-faire of Cary Grant and if Linda Tripp looked like Gwyneth Paltrow, and Monica – no, Monica was perfect. But were there Soviet spies in the State Department?
Despite its snarky tone, this is a valid question and one that if answered honestly places McCarthy in a very different light.
Article comments
1 - Kevin Holtsberry
I am not sure why Blogcritics has trouble with quotation marks. I think it has something to do with Microsoft Word but I can't seem to fix it. I tried saving the text as text only and clearing any formating but nothing seems to work.
2 - Mac Diva
Kevin, you need to retype the mistakes in the Blogcritics edit window. Sometimes, particularly when I copy from Blogger or the Chronicle Lite API client, things don't post right.
The aspect that annoys me most (and the critics, too) about that book is Coulter made up so much of it, including the footnotes. One sees people refuse to do any research in the blogosphere quite often, but the standards for a published writer who wants to be taken seriously are much higher. That is why she will remain a laughingstock to anyone except Far Right fellow travelers. Sure there are legitimate criticisms to be made about liberals and liberalism, but her ilk is incapable of making them.
3 - Craig Lyndall
I have had varying rates of success changing the font to ARIAL in MS Word and then copying it and pasting it. I haven't figured out why it works sometimes and not others. Try Arial though. It seems to copy in the quotes and apostrophes most successfully for me.
4 - TDavid
I created a fix for this distorted character problem that many of us have experienced, so feel free to bookmark and use: fixchar.
Instructions: Before posting to Movable Type simply cut and paste from your word processor into the form and click "Submit" Next, cut and paste the script generated results into the Movable Type form field. This program will cleanse the distorted output by removing/converting the troubled ASCII characters, if any exist.
This will not strip out HTML and also will display a preview of how the content/html will appear. Optionally you can show the ASCII character value (for the geeks in the audience). It automatically converts carriage returns to < BR > tags in the display.
Please let me know if there are any issues with this script. I tested with this entry above and it fixed the distorted characters. The script is free and if you use it then please consider adding a link to my blog from yours or to my script site tdscripts.com ;)
5 - Eric Olsen
Damn TDavid, that has dogged us from the beginning, thanks! The problem is that Amazon doesn't recognize non-standard characters, which include smart quotes (turn them off in your word processor), some dashes, some apostrophes. Turning off smart quotes will get rid of most of the problem, sounds like TDavid has come up with an answer for the rest.
6 - Eric Olsen
If you look through this post, you can see where anything with a curve to it generates the dreaded "A"s
7 - Al Barger
Obviously these problems are the work of commie subversives. Brian Flemming, we're looking at you...
8 - Mac Diva
Kevin, the more I think about your point in regard to McCarthy, the more it troubles me. I think the issue is whether there was a big enough problem with domestic spies to justify ruining all the lives McCarthy did, not whether there were any spies (Communist or otherwise) working for the government.
9 - Tim Hall
The wretched Smart Quotes from Microsoft are clearly an evil plot by libruls.
10 - Eric Olsen
Even when the nonstandard characters appear, all you have to do is go back in and change them once you are in Movable Type. I shall edit these out right now as they are making my face hurt.
11 - Kevin Holtsberry
The questions isn't "whether there was a big enough problem with domestic spies to justify ruining all the lives McCarthy did" but why did the government allow spies at the thighest levels of government? The choice between ruining lives and getting rid of spies is a false choice. McCarthy's tactics were wrong in many ways but the issue he was getting at remains: the elite tolerated spies because they could believe that their social equals would be traitors. Historical documents reveal that in fact FDR's administration was a breeding ground for spies and many of those people continued to influence government policy well into the Cold War.
12 - Michael Croft
Eric: The dreaded "A"'s appear as the author intended them if you switch your charset to UTC-8. Maybe we need to switch the template's Content-Type.
13 - Michael Croft
Kevin: I don't know if I'm just splitting hairs, but while I agree that espionage at the behest of a foreign power is a crime and not tolerable, I oppose the concept of "thought crimes". The constitution explicitly protects opinion, especially political opinion, even if it is vile or "anti-american".
If McCarthy had reached for a Federal Grand Jury instead of a television camera, his accusations of criminal behavior would have been of more merit.
I saw left-wing folk-singer Billy Bragg on tour a few years ago (prior to "Treason") and he was very up-front about his communist/socialist past. He told us that it was important for the left to acknowledge that Communism, which sounded so very promising, led to oppressive totalitarian regimes.
I'm with Bragg. Communism didn't work. It was no worker's paradise. At the same time, think McCarthy and Hoover compromised the ideals of America from within by attacking freedom of thought and expression.
14 - Eric Olsen
I think that's about right, Michael.
15 - notahippie
Coulter's a flash in the pan who shoots from the hip. She likes to stir it up for media attention and she won't last.
She's just going for shock value to sell books, but her propaganda won't stand up in ten years, except maybe in the discount bin at Walmart.