Authoress and columnist Ann Coulter recently wrote a book called `Godless'. The central message of that book is something I've said for some time...that Leftism (Coulter calls it `liberalism', which I feel is a misnomer) is a religion, with its own rigid cathechism, intolerant zealots and leaps of faith. The Left have already proved her point to a degree by going berserk over the book and in particular a mention of the so-called `Jersey Girls'...a group of five 9/11 widows whom Coulter writes about in `Godless' that she says are essentially using their bereavement to advance a political agenda.
Needless to say, the Left has responded by demonizing Coulter, who is persumably laughing all the way to the bank as her book hits number 1 on the NYT bestseller list.
I remember a similar outrage over Coulter's book `Treason', a re-examination of the McCarthy era and of the left's long time assistance and aid to the USSR during the Cold War.
Whenever self-desctibed `liberals' bring up `Godless' or `Treason', I have a simple question that never fails to reduce them to a miasma of mind-numbing rage: `Can you show me something Coulter wrote that was factually inaccurate or substantially untrue?'
While one might question Coulter's way of putting things, or her conclusions, her facts are almost always impeccable.
For instance, take Coulter's book `Treason'. Thanks to the VENONA project and our access to the Soviet Archives, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Rosenbergs, Alger and Donald Hiss,Harry Dexter White, Harry Hopkins, Lauchlin Currie, Nathan Sivermaster, Lud Ullman, Lillian Hellman, Paul Robeson, Walter Duranty and a host of figures in the State Department and Hollywood were in fact either Soviet Agents or people who deliberately and knowingly aided the Soviets with propaganda, direct espionage and/or material aid.
So Coulter's premise in the book, that Senator McCarthy was essentially correct in his statements that Hollywood and the US government were riddled with communist agents and `fellow travelers' during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations stands as simple fact...however unpleasant that might be. When one considers that Alger Hiss was one of Roosevelt's chief advisors at Yalta, it explains a lot.
Likewise, we can take Coulter's statements on the so-called `Jersey Girls' and examine them, stripped of emotion.
Have Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken (AKA `The Jersey Girls') used their bereavement to advance a political agenda? Have they expanded that agenda beyond 9/11 related catagories? Have they made substantial money (particularly Breitweiser) from speaking engagements and deals with the Main Stream Media as `commentators'.... positions they have no other qualifications for other than the fact they lost a husband on 9/11?
Obviously the answer's yes.
All five of these women share exactly the same anti-war and anti-Bush agenda. Most of them, if not all have a history of being Democratic party activists. Have they ever turned down a single offer to push that agenda in the media? Have other 9/11 widows with differing political views been afforded anything like the media access or credibility these women have?
Uhhh...no.
And then there's the issue of what I might call `selective outrage.' Have any of these women used the platform given to them by the Main Stream Media to criticize, say, Clinton Deputy Attorney general Jamie Gorelick for effectively preventing the NSA, the FBI and other secutity agencies from sharing intel on Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers? Or for using her position on the 9/11 commission to whitewash any intel from Able/Danger and other sources that reflected badly on the Clinton Administration or her own actions?
Hmmmm....crickets chirping.
I have my own differences with some of Ann Coulter's conclusions and occasionally with what I might describe as her style...but she's not wrong on this one. And as I said, the hysteria which which the left has attacked her pretty much proves that the overall message of `Godless' about leftism being a religion is pretty much on target.
It's not hard to imagine them burning Coulter at the stake if they could get away with it.
Hi Nazar, and welcome to JoshuaPundit.
ReplyDeleteFirst, keep in mind that the actual `witch-hunters' as you call them ,were HUAC, not McCarthy. And that the Left denied, dnied, denied that these people were Soviet agents until the Soviet Union crumbled and the Vendona cables and Soviet archives came to light.
I do agree that some people were unjustly purged as collateral damage, but as a whole the anti-Soviet investigations and trials were necessary and proper for the nation's security.
The vast majority of these people were traitors, plain and simple. I suggest you read Coulter's book `Treason' and make up your own mind.
As for Viet Nam, the problem IMO was not a lack of knowledge but a lack of will. Part of that was because Lyndon Johnson had a pecuniary interest in the war (he was a partner in Brown-Root, who had a monopoly built all of the bases in Vietnam).
The largest part was because the American Government at the time deliberately refused to fight a quick and decisive war there. You cannot win a war when you fight defensively and refuse to take the war to the enemy.
When Barry Goldwater ran in 1964, he outlined a strategy for the war that would have ended it in six months, either by bringing all of our troops home or by a decisive military victory. It was, in essence, the same strategy Nixon used several years later to end the war, and if it wasn't for the fact that the Watergate era leftist congress repudiated US pledges to aid South Vietnam and Cambodia (both of who's militaries had stopped the communists), the killing fields would never have happened and South Vietnam would be free today.
Had Goldwater won, the US would have been spared both a prolonged Viet Nam war and Watergate.
Thanks for weighing in..come back anytime.