Rating: 
Summary: Ann Coulter, auch du bist eingesperrt
Review: Ms. Coulter continues with her thesis that only by being a right-wing dupe can you be a true patriot. Funny, I do not remember any of that in any of the writings of the Founding Fathers, maybe I did not read the McCarthy edition.
Ms Coulter has a some fancy degrees, but she does not understand one vital point: she is the darling of the republican establishment because she is a very useful tool. Tools are discarded when they outive their usefulness. She will be in the spotlgiht a few more years, write a few more books; then she will be replaced by a fresh face and removed to the ustbins of history. If she starts complaining her former employers will find out that she was a mythomaniac and a whiner in the first place.
She should have learnt from history. The quote above was inspired by posters in West Germany facing the East German border guards. They said "Soldat, auch du bist eingesperrt", meaning "Soldier, even you are inprisoned."
Rating:
Summary: Ann, mental health is too important to ignore!
Review: Miss Coulter is obviously a bitter, hateful revisionist. Others have skillfully pointed out the factual innacuracies of her book and the flaws in her research. Skip this reviw if you want another retelling of the many factual and research gaps in this book, I refuse to bore you by repeating.I have also had the opportunity to hear her speak. She seems to really believe that her distorted right wing opinions are the absolute truth. What I find disturbing is the level of hate and malice she harbors toward those who disagree with her, even when they do so respectfully. She basically argues that critical analysis of the right-wing political agenda is treason. She seems to want only one political voice, and she is on a mission to eliminate those who disagree with her agenda. Remind you of any historic figures? Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin come to mind. In person she seems mentally disturbed and hysterical, especially when responding to someone who challenges her opinions. The professional help of a therapist could only benefit Miss Coulter. By the way for those who are blind followers of Miss Colter, I know your first reaction is to get angry, attack blindly, and accuse me of not reading the book. I read this book (checked it out of my local library) and I still have nightmares. Make no mistake, I don't mind reading a reasoned, well written argument by someone who has different viewpoints. I find that I learn more when I read something that challenges me to think critically about what I believe. If that is what you are seeking this is not the book for you. When I read this book and when I heard Miss Coulter speak it became clear that she has a vendetta against liberals, democrats and everyone who does not share her opinions. She is also clearly willing to trash anyone to defend her opinions no matter how ill conceived and poorly researched they are. If you are seeking the disturbed, extreme rantings of a right-wing wacko then look no further. Congratulations! You have just hit paydirt, happy reading. For those of you who have read her book, feel validated by it and want to live in Ann Coulter's version of America please get a comprehensive mental health evaluation. And for my sake, I pray that you come to think of Chicago as a liberal city and a terrible place to live.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing propaganda
Review: This book, and others like it from both the conservative and liberal sides (whatever those terms now mean) should be studied as professional propaganda. The formula is well-known. Ann Coulter knows what she's doing. Whether she actually believes what she's writing may be irrelevant at this point. As long as it appears she is presenting serious and factual information about how liberals are, in fact, guilty of treason, then her point is made. What must be admired in a demented way is her total dedication to the cause. That is the mark of a true professional, after all, and she is a professional cheerleader for the far right wing. According to Ann, the left, and liberals, and Democrats (all conveniently lumped together) have been consistently wrong about every single issue for at least fifty or sixty years now, they hate America, they want to destroy America, and Bill Clinton is evil and is responsible for many of the ills now facing America. This is her schtick, in a nutshell. So half the country is guilty of treason. I'm guessing that after this nasty portion of the population is liquidated, America can be safe for people like Ann Coulter: rich, white, overly opinionated, and full of hatred (most notably for herself) and absolute contempt for people, including those who would buy her book. A good sampling of Coulter quotes is enough to tell you what this book is about and what she is about. Go ahead, crack this one open and indulge for a bit. Then put it down, and go on with your treasonous self!
Rating:
Summary: TERRIBLE --- NO CITATIONS>NO FOOTNOTES - NO RESEARCH
Review: Totally falacous and untrue. full of partisan hatred and venim from a JEW HATING, chain smoking chardonnay-binge drinking AIRHEAD... did i mention she once said to a wounded vietnam veteran that it was people like them that lost us the war...
Rating:
Summary: From a Usenet post...
Review: Liberals are the Jews of the contemporary Right-wing. The Right has tried
-- with a great deal of success -- to tar "Liberals" as the source
of every societal problem, real or imaginary, while simultanerously
pursuing policies that are dead against the interests of the
demented fools they've managed to recruit through lies
and repetition. Limbaugh, Coulter, and to a lesser extent, Hannity,
constantly drum this dogmatic nonsense into the
heads of their listeners. Those listeners,unhappy and fearful,
absorb it all and try to regurgitate it, although
most don't quite get it right. Those listeners, that anxious corps of clerks and tradesmen, ever
uneasy in their jobs, up to their hips in mortgage and car payments,
in constant stress in a work enviornment that perpetually calls for
doing more with less, unhappy and angry, hear this stuff, identify an
enemy, a scapegoat, the "Liberal," and buy into every lie and fantasy
propagated by the huge Right-wing machine. So, enviornmentalists
become enviro-terrorists and tree-huggers, feminists become femi-nazis,
war is peace, genuine heros are traitors while cowards and
draft-dodgers are patriots, and Liberals are used to replace the old
Hobgoblin, the Jew, as the source of societal evil, the degeneration
of morals, and the enemy of American civilization. This is really pretty dangerous stuff. We're not so bad off
economically that outright fascism would play in politics, but give us
a real economic slide and the drumbeat will grow stronger. Hannity
already condemns opposing political speech as "irresponsible," and,
thanks to the ever vicious Anne Coulter, it's become fashionable among
these ignorant fools to call Liberals -- and all Democrats, for that
matter -- traitors. What's next, condemning "Liberal" speech and
calling for a massive round-up and imprisonment of "Liberals?"
Nothing is too far out for the far Right.
Rating:
Summary: There Are Lots of Smart Conservatives -- She Isn't One
Review: There are any number of intelligent conservative voices. Ann Coulter isn't one of them. I'm a moderate Democrat, pro-military, in favor (with reservations) of this war. I'm open to Republican arguments on a broad range of topics. I suffer from that endemic weakness of moderates: an open mind. But Ms. Coulter offers nothing of interest to anyone with an open mind -- or any other variety of mind. She's a liar and a tiresome one at that. She is a living, breathing reproach ... not to Democrats or Liberals, but to Republicans. Republicans can't possibly be stupid enough to buy this desperate wanna-be pundit's drivel. Can they? My many Republican friends share nothing in common with this sad, silly woman.
Rating:
Summary: Fascistic sludge
Review: Is this woman insane or just a fembot? Either way this book is hateful and wrong. Tell me which is more patriotic: to believe and defend the right to speak out and dissent? or the belief that liberals are treasonous? Liberals are treasonous!!!?????? Gees....I thought I lived in a free democratic society. Hmmm...guess Ann has set me straight.
Rating:
Summary: Straw men
Review: It is incredible that - over, and over, and over, the likes of Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage, Ingraham on radio, books and TV make a very nice living through their blatant use of the "straw man". It's their bread and butter and accounts - easily, for 75% of the content they create, regardless of media. If you've never heard of this term, here's a nice definition I've found (emphasis, mine)... "Straw man. Another way to stack the deck against the opposition is to draw a false picture of the opposing argument. Then it is easy to say, "This should be rejected because this (exaggerated and distorted) picture of it is wrong." The name of the fallacy comes from the idea that if you set up a straw man, he is easier to knock down than a real man. And that is exactly the way this fallacy works: set 'em up and knock 'em down. ->It is argument
by caricature. It avoids dealing with the real issues by changing the opposition's views." <-(Geisler N.L. & Brooks R.M, "Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking," 1990, p101) The next time you see a sentence that reads along the lines of, "Liberals think that...", written by one of these conservative infotainers, rest assured they are building their liberal straw man, soon to be easily pummeled Use of a Straw man in an argument is dismissable on its face, as are these conservative screeds in their entirety.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a Book For Both Sides
Review: Whether or not one will enjoy this book rides primarily on one question: are they already firmly seated on the Conservative Republican side of the political spectrum, or aren't they? Since I am such a person, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Ann Coulter brought up many points of history I certainly never learned about in school (the exclusion of which was quite interesting, given givens--it's not that anything she said contradicted what I'd learned; it's that no teacher or textbook had ever bothered going into detail about McCarthy, Alger Hiss, or Watergate at all), and her constant citing made it seem likely that much of what she said--leaving out the parts that were opinion or personal judgment--was historically accurate. That's not to say she couldn't possibly have cherry-picked which facts she presented or didn't speak with bias. I suspect she did in the former case, and the latter is obvious. That doesn't mean, to me, that _Treason_ is valueless as far as historical insights go; it means that it shows one side of the story. In that respect, it seems neither more nor less useful than some textbooks I've seen. The problem is, this is a book for die-hard conservatives only. If you're liberal, moderate, or sitting on the fence as yet? Don't even bother. What _Treason_ has to say might be factually valuable, but it's rife with insults and zingers aimed at everything left-wing. As a conservative, I admit that I enjoyed this aspect of it--I've seen my party and my creeds regularly insulted offhand by people all over the media and Internet, and I did get a certain pleasure out of seeing the favor returned. That's not nice, but what the hey. However, if I'd been a liberal or anything *but* a die-hard conservative, I probably would've been offended out the wazoo by Coulter's openly venemous snarkery. She doesn't mince words when it comes to her opinions, nor couch things in any remotely diplomatic fashion. And that, I think, is the main problem the book has. It does not and cannot speak to both sides, not really; not when it takes a potshot at liberals every few breaths. It's not likely to win converts to the conservative viewpoint, either. One might argue that this isn't its purpose--and for all I know, that's true--but then I have to wonder what the point is, since that would mean she's preaching to the choir. Maybe she only wanted to educate young, ignorant conservatives about certain points in history; I'm not sure. It seems a waste of potential if so: this book could have had things to say to more people than just the solid right wing, if it didn't go out of its way to alienate anyone with leftist leanings. Of course, if it weren't so vicious, it probably wouldn't be so controversial or receive so much attention, and it would probably be a much heavier and slower read. (She *can* be pretty funny, if you happen to share her bias, and that makes the book more palatable IMHO than if it had been a dry and personality-free accounting.) This may be why she took the tack she did, and I can understand it if so; still, it's sort of a shame. In short: if you're already conservative and would like to read something that has plenty of interesting historical tidbits and a great deal of vilification of liberals? By all means, pick this up. You'll probably have fun with it. If you're a liberal, though, this will probably (and understandably) tick you off too much to do anything for you. If you're someone of any party who doesn't care for rampant snarking, give this a pass. And if you're somewhere inbetween... well, you could give it a try, but go into it knowing that the left-bashing is extremely heavy and may well offend.
Rating: 
Summary: Why no mention of Robert La Follette Jr?
Review: Despite all the dozens of pages on McCarthy and all of the names she mentions about the period, there was not one mention (from my reading of it and a search of the index) of Robert La Follette Jr., likely because it would ruin her premise that McCarthy has been unfairly deemed a demagogue. La Follette Jr. was the incumbent Republican Senator in the 1946 race for the Wisconsin Senate who McCarthy ran against. McCarthy claimed that he had avoided service during WWII and engaged in war profiteering. These charges were false, as Follette was 46, too old to serve in the military and his investment in WWII was in a radio station, but they still hurt him and he went down in the primary. He retired from politics, led a sad life afterwards, and eventually committed suicide in 1953. The case of Robert La Follette Jr. is sort of ironic because La Follette Sr., like McCarthy, was censured by the Senate. Unlike McCarthy, however, he is now regarded as one of the country's great congressmen (perhaps sobriety proved the difference here). Another case is Carl Greenblum. He was an army engineer who was called in before McCarthy's committee and questioned about his mother in 1954. McCarthy hassled him over why he didn't know that his mother was a Communist and eventually Greenblum broke down crying because his mother had just died two days earlier. Surprisingly, McCarthy granted him a recess to settle down, but then went and told the press during the recess that Greenblum had cracked "after some rather vigorous cross-examination by Roy Cohn." He continued, "I have just received word that the witness admits that he was lying the first time around and now wants to tell the truth." This was false and the inquisitions into Greenblum cost him his job as an engineer. Having done nothing wrong, Greenblum managed to get a court to reinstate him in 1958, a year after McCarthy's death. It is almost understandable that Coulter failed to mention him because the subcommittee transcripts exonerating Greenblum were released only a few months before Treason's release. Still, her silence on this speaks volume about her willingness to ignore evidence so to distort and spew. Greenblum was one of 42 Army Engineers who lost their jobs as a result of McCarthy's accusations. Of these, 40 managed to become reinstated, having been involved in no subversive activity. Also, her logic that the Venona cables exonerate McCarthy is deeply flawed. Of all those accused by McCarthy of being subversive, only about a half dozen appear on the cables. Also, the Communist spy rings were mostly broken up by the time of McCarthy's crusade. I give her credit (hence, the 2 stars) because she made a good effort, but overall, this is an empty tome of little historical value.
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