Rating: 
Summary: 21st Century Handbook of Spin
Review: In "Treason," satirist Ann Coulter updates "Mein Kampf," substituting the terms "liberal" or "Democrat" for "Jew" and "conservative" or "Republican" for "Aryan."Anyone who has ever wondered how Adolf Hitler succeeded in bewitching the German people with rhetoric will find this work fascinating. The reader gradually comes to understand that "it could happen here." Along with the companion volume "Slander," Miss Coulter uses "Treason" to demonstrate that: -- The Religious Right doesn't exist.
-- All liberals are traitors; all conservatives are patriots.
-- The only victim of McCarthyism was McCarthy himself.
-- The Soviet Union would NEVER have developed nuclear weapons if the US Army had been competent in rooting out spies.
-- Much, much more Miss Coulter, a lawyer, cherry-picks the historical record to illustrate the art of spin at its highest levels. All of the usual logical fallacies are included, along with emotional appeals, conveniently omitted facts, sweeping generalizations, baseless attributions, quotes with reversed context, opinions disguised as facts, and others that haven't even been named yet. As with its intellectual ancestor, Jonathon Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," many readers of "Treason" aren't aware that the book is satirical. Hopefully this won't lead to any bloodletting by McVeigh-types seeing Miss Coulter as their Messiah. "Treason" is somewhat choppy and isn't always coherent, like the German original. The book should reinvigorate our resolve to resist fascist tendencies, however.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it then vote...
Review: Before you write off this book as merely being something only the right wing red neck reader will enjoy as Ann Coulter preaches to the choir, before you decide my five star rating automatically deserves an "unhelpful" vote as far as reviews go, think for a minute, or even a second, what if she's right? What if she's right even about a small portion of what she declares as being true in this book on the treasonous behavior of the left? Would it perhaps rate your attention for more than a sneer or a quick retort about how she's just a right wing demagogue? Ann Coulter has chronicled the behavior of liberals and their Democratic party and its presidents that have not only acted treasonously against the United States, but have dismissed millions, tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions to death, torture, "reeducation" camps and misery. That millions have been butchered due to policies put in place and advocated by the Democratic party would seem to be an outrageous statement unworthy of further review if advanced by someone that wasn't such a brilliant writer and thinker and so well documented. The reason that Ann Coulter is so violently hated by the left is simply because her brilliance and logic cannot simply be set aside, those that fail to read the truthfulness of her words do so at their own peril. Her words remind us of how dangerous a world we live in and how dangerous it was once under the ominous threat of the Soviet Union. Reagan's policies and actions lead directly to the down fall of the Soviets (she provides enough documentation here that coupled with common sense and anything other than a blind hatred for Reagan will convince the reader of what a true hero he really is). The current war on terror can be won too, if we as a nation will only allow ourselves to be reminded of the past, and not embark on the course of the Democratic Party which, since World War II has fought, seemingly, on the side of America's enemies. Or not so "seemingly" as the case my be, some leftists don't even pretend to root for America as she again documents with clarity. Ann Coulter does a wonderful job of reminding the reader of the past and paralleling it with current events. This is perhaps the best strength of this work. She makes comparisons that allows the reader to see how disloyal and vile the actions of Democratic party were in the past, how through their collective power of the vote here in America so many lives in other parts of the world were systematically destroyed and at the same time our national defense was diminished. Today we face similar threats and she reminds us, shows us, over and over again, how the liberals in America fight to destroy what most Americas hold dear. The history lesson on Joseph McCarthy was especially enlightening. Several times she writes "most of you will be reading/hearing about this person/event for the first time." She explains how the left was so successful at demonizing a man that later, long after he was dead, long after liberals had convinced us all how evil he was, he was finally proven to be totally correct. Secret cables from the Soviet Union were finally declassified in 1995. The left was totally wrong and evil in it's behavior, Ann Coulter points out, but enough of the myth had been spoken over and over that by the time the real truth came it, it was a little too late for most people to understand what really had happened. The war on terrorism will be won or lost depending on how the politicians in America decide to fight it is one of the points I take away from my reading of Ann Coulter's book. Will they act honorably or treasonous? I firmly believe that she has made a very compelling case that Republican Presidents tend to act with honor and with America's best interest at heart when it comes to fighting tyranny and terror and that Democratic Presidents tend to act without honor and without America's best interest at heart when it comes to fighting tyranny and terror, thus the apt title of this book "Treason". I give it one of my strongest recommendations and further claim that not reading it before voting is simply to put your head in the sand.
Rating: 
Summary: Not pseudohistory, but as close as you can get to it
Review: When writing an Op/Ed column, one does not really have to be concerned with having one's facts straight, since of course the column usually concern's one's personal assessment of current events. For example, if Ann Coulter wants to call moderate Republicans like Arlen Spector & Michael Bloomberg Democrats only pretending to be Republicans --- well, who can argue with her opinion on that? There are no specific facts that will prove or disprove that statement; agree or disagree with her, Ann Coulter is clearly in her element when it comes to opining. However, with "Treason," she has ventured into the perilous territory of writing history (and whether she likes it or not, that is exactly what she is doing), and history is an academic discipline which adheres to certain standards of scholarship. Those who fail adhere to those standards (such as Afrocentrists & Holocaust deniers) are often known as pseudohistorians, who are presenting a deliberately distorted picture of history in order to further a specific ideological agenda. Ann Coulter may not be on the same order as David Irving, but there are times she comes pretty damned close. Sean Hannity did the same thing in "Deliver Us From Evil," when he presented a laughably outdated assessment of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy, an assessment so easily disproven by the historical record that Hannity came across as a bumbling amateur. Coulter, no doubt as a result of her legal training, is much more canny. Her facts, in and of themselves, are meticulously researched and would be difficult to disprove. But does this mean that she paints an accurate picture of history? A fair synopsis of the Coulter argument would be: 1) There were communist spies well-placed in the US government, proven by the now-declassified Venona cables. Liberals denied that there was a high level of communist espionage taking place. 2) Senator McCarthy pursued communists in the State Department & the US Army, and for his efforts was destroyed by the liberals. 3) Liberals and Democrats, having been accessories to massive communist infiltration and having destroyed the most prominent anti-communist whistle-blower, then embarked on a path of aiding and abetting the enemies of the US down to the present day. Coulter is able to extrapolate almost all of this based on the fact that the Venona Cables prove what was long suspected --- that there were in fact communist operatives in place in the US government in the mid-1940's. Coulter and her defenders would argue that the Venona Cables vindicate everything that McCarthy did; in fact they do no such thing. The spies dealt with in the Venona Cables had either been arrested or had fled the country long before McCarthy began his activities. Nearly a full decade separates the Venona Cables and McCarthy at the height of his activities --- to presume to connect one with the other without hard evidence requires a leap of faith and a lot of assumptions. Responsible historians do not engage in leaps of faith. If there were communists in the government during McCarthy's time (we don't know, since McCarthy failed to unmask a single one), they were different operatives entirely from the ones dealt with in the Venona Cables. The most damning thing about the Venona Cables is that it shows that liberals greatly underestimated the extent of communist espionage within the US government, and that hardly constitutes treason. Coulter's argument also ignores the fact that it wasn't the liberals that failed to catch the various communists that got away, it usually was the FBI, led by the arch-anticommunist J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover & the FBI were well aware of the spies mentioned in the Venona Cables for years, but let several get away scot-free. How exactly did the liberals cause this? Hoover also gave great support to McCarthy, despite the concerns of legitimate anti-espionage experts who believed that McCarthy, with his showboating and grandiose accusations, was deflecting attention from genuine communist operatives. Recent scholarship has shown that McCarthy (with Hoover's support), not the liberals, probably did more long-term damage to the anti-espionage community than anyone else, by discrediting the anticommunist crusade. Coulter also ignores the fact that McCarthy was censured by a GOP-led Congress, and that a great number of Republicans (including Eisenhower) either distrusted or outright opposed McCarthy. A great number of Republicans rode McCarthy's coattails because it was politically expedient --- when he overreached himself by taking on the US Army, these same Republicans took advantage of the opportunity to rid themselves of an increasingly embarrassing liability. The Democrats never could have stopped McCarthy on their own, but you wouldn't know this from reading Coulter's book. The rest of Coulter's book is your typical partisan cherry-picking, which should come as no surprise. Democratic administrations are universally condemned for bungling the Cold War, while the Republican administrations inevitably triumph. Obviously a double standard is at work here. If Nixon had been a Democrat, Coulter would have excoriated him for pulling out of Viet Nam, establishing relations with Red China, and cutting spending of defense. Similarly, if Eisenhower & JFK had been of different parties, Coulter would have assigned the blame for the Bay of Pigs fiasco to Ike, since it was his administration that drew up the plan in the first place. Of course, Reagan gets credit for ending the Cold War, even though the defense spending that brought the Soviets to their knees was merely a continuation of Carter's aggresive spending increases on defense. Neither Carter nor Truman (who of course embarked on the policy of containment in the first place) receive anything other than ridicule and scorn. The Bush, Clinton, and Bush years are not even worth discussing, as Coulter does not even attempt to maintain the guise of objectivity. One would hope that most people will appreciate that the historical record does not conform to Coulter's black-and-white view of the world. I can only assume that with Republicans in control of both the White House & the Congress, Coulter has been forced to reach into the past to assault liberals and Democrats. A Kerry victory in November would be a dream come true for Coulter, for it would mean that she could abandon the writing of history and go back to writing polemics against a Democratic president --- which really is her bread & butter anyway. She would do well to leave the writing of history to those scholars who actually have some respect for the discipline.
Rating:
Summary: Let's Be Serious for a Moment
Review: Honestly, I can't understand why people are giving this great book one star. I'd be willing to bet most of them never even read the book. It's more likely that they are conservative bashers who routinely come to this site to bash any book written by any conservative. Don't believe their lies. You'll notice each of their negative reviews lacks one very important element: facts to back up their claims.
Rating:
Summary: Spare the Cephalopods, Buy Hannity
Review: You owe your audience more when a light-weight loon like Al Franken and a team of wet-behind-the-ears researchers can discredit your entire (and rather myopic) research methodology by the mere force of a few off-hand comments in a farcical little polemic. Instead, dear reader, save your money for Hannity. At least he can give you that patriotic fix you crave and desire without choking you in that nasty, lingering taint Coulter's low-carb-draft-disguised as-critical-thinking leaves. If "Treason" had a 'mouth-feel' it would be crap, nutty crap. This book is an utter waste of time - especially for thoughtful conservatives, such as myself, with no patience for shady, fast-and-easy-with-the-truth hacks who shore up their fact-finding indiscretions in political piety, name-calling, and purple- passages. Leave the ekphrasis to the dead Greeks, Ann. Leave history to those who read and study it and who do not jigsaw it together from lexis/nexis. Finally, as Aristotle might have advised, leave politics for the human beings to pick over. This book stinks.
Rating:
Summary: I suppose she could be called an entertainer
Review: Isn't that the excuse Coulter, Limbaugh, and their ilk give for the barrage of bad information they publish? "We're not journalists, we're entertainers." Well, okay, then, it is somewhat entertaining to read Ann Coulter...or maybe stunned fascination is more like it. The mischaracterizations, misquotes, and outrigtht falsehoods that fill this book, and most of Coulter's work, are well-documented elsewhere, but I doubt her followers are the type to bother finding out.
Rating:
Summary: Read David Brock's "The Republican Noise Machine"
Review: Read David Brock's "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy" and learn how propaganda like this gets published.
Rating:
Summary: Read it before you rate it!!
Review: Who are these idiots who keep giving books one-star ratings without having even read them?! "Treason" is an excellent read. Ann Coulter shows us that the liberals in the country have an uncanny knack for being on the wrong side of history, whether it be by siding with Communists during the Cold War, or by siding against America during the War on Terror (Those who say we deserved to be attacked on 9-11-01.). It's okay for the Libs to savagely attack and criticize America, but when anyone tries to call them on it, these drama queens scream "McCarthyism!" (That myth is debunked here, too.) Nearly a decade after the declassification of the Venona cables, American liberals continue to insist that Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent! Yes, this book has become the target of a lot of rage and hate from the al-Quaida cheering section (a.k.a. the Democratic Party, the mainstream media and the Hollywood Left.), but Coulter should be thanked, not despised, for shedding the light of truth on these people.
Rating:
Summary: Not Exactly Treason.
Review: Ann Coulter is a heroine to many conservatives as she writes voluminously and is a ubiquitous figure on television where she can be seen championing our cause several times a week. Regardless of the media venue, she'll stand up to any foe that the left brings before her and unflinchingly debates firebrands like Gloria Allred, James Carville, Paul Begala, and Eric Alterman. She is more Green Beret than Hessian mercenary. Ann Coulter is simply the best sword that we on the right possess. With this in mind, I joined thousands of others who bought her new book the first week it was released.
Coulter's theme is that although "the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security." To this particular reviewer, a better title for the book would have been "Negligence" as it is a more accurate description of the positions taken (or not taken as the case may be) by the left. To have focused on negligence rather than treason would have been less inflammatory, and it would also have decreased the breadth of her critics' argumentative ground.
Coulter has some very valuable and timeless observations apart from the controversial Senator McCarthy. She argues that, "[h]istory is an endless process of liberal brainwashing," and I find much truth in this statement. I've read over 100 books on Hitler and Stalin but I'd be hard-pressed to tell you which one was more evil. They were both a level of sadistic monstrosity that makes comparisons arbitrary and meaningless. Yet, to embrace the Soviet Union is still a socially acceptable (or really socially neutral) act, but to embrace the Third Reich is the act of a pariah. Why is this true? Unfortunately, it is because communism is thought of being on the left side of the political spectrum and Nazism is thought of being on the right side of the political spectrum. Of course, such perceptions are not accurate. In my opinion, both are pathologies of the left but I'll save that argument for another time. Regardless, I believe that Coulter's statement about history is quite insightful.
The fundamental premise of Treason, that leftist-liberals care little about this nation's security and often display an anti-American bias when analyzing world events, has considerable evidence behind it. She states that the only part of government that the left ever wants to reduce in size is national defense. Whether America has a right to defend itself is central to this work. It is also a very topical discussion. This reviewer just penned a piece about Liberia and my belief is that their struggle does not advance America's interests in any way, so it seems an unworthy use of force. In Treason, Coulter provides the microscope through which the left would examine my arguments. She stated, "The left's theory of a just war had evolved to (1) military force must never be deployed in America's self-interest; and (2) we must first receive approval from the Europeans, especially the Germans. Good thing we didn't have that rule in 1941." Indeed, the left never expects us to act in our own interests because defending the nation is something that ironic and rational adults would never consider.
Treason is a polemic and thus is imbued with a great deal of hyperbole (as if I have any room to talk). This has not been lost on any of Coulter's critics and they have, and will, spend considerable time attacking her politically incorrect speech. I acknowledge that name-calling weakens her case as the use of "Oriental beasts" will offend practically everybody. She further describes America's defeatist male liberals as being "women" along with labeling professors: "sissy-boys in academia."
People will make much of this non-PC talk, but I don't think it's anything more than the purposeful desire to blow the veneer off the edifice of society's submission to leftist dogma (a.k.a.-PC). Coulter, like many other conservatives, knows that calling grown men "girls" irritates the recipient to no end and horrifies the radical feminists who despise everyone that refuses to obey their commands. Ann Coulter is guilty of too much zeal but considering the lies and deceit that the left foists upon those of us who defend western civilization, it is nearly warranted. Given our times, I am not surprised that venomous invective is so much a part of this book. I agree it would be a more scholarly work without it but I think it unlikely she would willingly sanitize her own words even if one hundred million people requested it. It's not in her nature. This book will be a huge money-maker for all involved and I recommend it without hesitation to my brothers and sisters on the right, yet I acknowledge it will have little appeal to those in the center.
Rating:
Summary: Aryan Girl Tries To Appease Her Dominant Males...
Review: Ann Coulter, nationally recognized as the most accurate fountain of historical reference, launches an attack on the left wing throughout the last seventy years of American Life, explaining how they were wrong about McCarthyism (Of course they were! And to think, he almost had that Stalinist Subversive Lucille Ball and he let her go!), all matters of foreign policy (Truman really was lily-livered. Only dropping two atomic bombs on Japan. Either one of the George Bushs would have deep-fried everything between Paris and Hawaii, given the chance) and basically writes between the lines that any opposition to her American Fascism views are nothing short of treason. In Dallas, on November 22, 1963, signs were held up that read "Wanted For Treason" with a photo of President Kennedy. They claimed he was soft on communism, after having saved the world from a Nuclear Holocaust in the Cuban Missle Crisis; I suppose she thinks we should have followed through with that as well. Coulter's claims that the American Left was wrong about George W. Bush is a matter of (imensley tainted) opinion; his family is responsible for the ascension to power of both Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden's family, along with decades of ties to the Saudi Royal Family(17 of the Hijackers on those planes were Saudis, by the way). Soldiers are dying needlessly in Iraq, but anyone who champions peace instead of war is a dissident traitor. Little Orphan Annie should walk away from her attempts at actual journalism and settle back into her political love affair with Sean Hannity.
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