Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism - Rilegato

Ann Coulter’s books Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right and High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton were New York Times bestsellers. Look for her latest book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), available from Crown Forum. Read Ann Coulter’s column and contact her at www.anncoulter.com.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

Fifty Years of Treason

Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love America, too. No they don't. Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence. The left's obsession with the crimes of the West and their Rousseauian respect for Third World savages all flow from this subversive goal. If anyone has the gaucherie to point out the left's nearly unblemished record of rooting against America, liberals turn around and scream "McCarthyism!"

Liberals invented the myth of McCarthyism to delegitimize impertinent questions about their own patriotism. They boast (lyingly) about their superior stance on civil rights. But somehow their loyalty to the United States is off-limits as a subject of political debate. Why is the relative patriotism of the two parties the only issue that is out of bounds for discussion? Why can't we ask: Who is more patriotic -- Democrats or Republicans? You could win that case in court.

Fifty years ago, Senator Joe McCarthy said, "The loyal Democrats of this nation no longer have a Party."(1) Since then, the evidence has continued to pour in. Liberals mock Americans who love their country, calling them cowboys, warmongers, religious zealots, and jingoists. By contrast, America's enemies are called "Uncle Joe," "Fidel," "agrarian reformers," and practitioners of a "religion of peace." Indeed, Communists and terrorists alike are said to be advocates of "peace."

Liberals demand that the nation treat enemies like friends and friends like enemies. We must lift sanctions, cancel embargoes, pull out our troops, reason with our adversaries, and absolutely never wage war -- unless the French say it's okay. Any evidence that anyone seeks to harm America is stridently rejected as "no evidence." Democratic senators, congressmen, and ex-presidents are always popping up in countries hostile to the United States -- Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Iraq -- hobnobbing with foreign despots who hate America. One year after Osama bin Laden staged a massive assault on America, a Democratic senator was praising bin Laden for his good work in building "day care centers." At least we can be thankful that in the war on terrorism, we were spared the spectacle of liberals calling Osama bin Laden an "agrarian reformer."

The ACLU responded to the 9-11 terrorist attack by threatening to sue schools that hung god bless america signs. Is the ACLU more or less patriotic than the Daughters of the American Revolution? Public schools across the nation prohibited the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. Is it more patriotic or less patriotic to prevent schoolchildren from saying the Pledge of Allegiance? University professors called patriotic Americans "naive" and described patriotism as a "benign umbrella for angry people."(2) Is it more patriotic to love your country or to ridicule those who do as "naive" and "angry"? These are not questions impenetrable to human logic.

Liberals want to be able to attack America without anyone making an issue of it. Patriotism is vitally important -- but somehow impossible to measure. Liberals relentlessly oppose the military, the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag, and national defense. But if anyone calls them on it, they say he's a kook and a nut. Citing the unpatriotic positions of liberals constitutes "McCarthyism."

In the 1988 presidential campaign, Vice President George Bush pointed out that his opponent Michael Dukakis had vetoed a bill requiring students to begin their day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Liberal heads spun with the dark reminders of the McCarthy era. Dukakis instantly compared Bush's dastardly trick of citing his record "to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Red-baiting during the 1950s."(3) Despite this slur against his patriotism, Dukakis said, "The American people can smell the garbage."(4) At least sophisticated Americans could smell the garbage. As one journalist said of Bush's unwarranted reference to Dukakis's record, it was intended to "rile up" ignoramuses in the American populace: the "folks who don't know any better," whose inferior "education or experience has not taught them that the right to speak out is the rudder of this great big boat we call America."(5) The only people whose "right to speak out" is not part of this great big boat we call America are Republicans who dare to mention that a Democrat vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance. Free speech is a one-way ratchet for traitors. While journalists assailed Bush for creating an atmosphere of intolerance for those who "object to patriotic oaths," they didn't mind creating an atmosphere of intolerance toward those who support patriotic oaths.(6)

Later, while campaigning at a naval base, Bush said of Dukakis, "I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks a naval exercise is something you find in the Jane Fonda Workout Book."(7) Again, there were wails of "McCarthyism" all around. Showing the left's renowned ability to get a joke, one reporter earnestly demanded to know: "Did Bush mean to imply that Dukakis is anti-military?"(8) Bush responded to the hysteria over his Jane Fonda joke, saying, "Was that funny? Reasonably funny? A naval exercise -- I thought that was pretty funny."(9)

Historians claimed they had not seen "patriotism used with such cynical force" since the fifties. It was "disturbing," historians and political analysts said, for Bush to manipulate symbols to "raise doubts about the Democratic nominee's patriotism."(10) Historian William Leuchtenburger, at the University of North Carolina, said, "I don't recall anything like this before. I don't think there has been an issue like this -- an issue so irrelevant to the powers of the presidency."(11) Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory complained about the "McCarthyesque form" to Bush's language: "The subliminal message in all the nastiness and bad taste is that Dukakis is somehow un-American: doesn't salute the flag or dig defense."(12) The New York Times denounced Bush for "wrapping himself in the flag." Through his "masterly use of the subliminal" Bush had used "political code." The code was "pledge plus flag plus strong defense equals patriotism."(13) (Evidently true patriotism consists of hatred of flag plus hatred of Pledge plus weakness on national defense.) Not going for subtlety, this was under the headline "Playing Rough; Campaign Takes a Turn onto the Low Road."

A frenzy of "McCarthyism" arose again in Bush's next presidential campaign against noted patriot Bill Clinton. While a Rhodes scholar, Clinton joined anti-war protests abroad. One year after the USSR crushed Czechoslovakia, Clinton had taken what the media called a "sightseeing trip to Moscow." For mentioning Clinton's anti-war protests abroad, Bush was called a nut and a McCarthyite. Clinton campaign aide George Stephanopoulos said Bush was "off the wall, lost his compass."(14) Clinton's running mate, Al Gore, accused Bush of "smear tactics, McCarthyite techniques."(15) Meanwhile, CNN's Robert Novak defended McCarthy, saying, "Joe didn't do any innuendo, Joe would have said the guy is a Communist."(16)

"McCarthyism" means pointing out positions taken by liberals that are unpopular with the American people. As former president Bush said, "Liberals do not like me talking about liberals."(17) The reason they sob about the dark night of fascism under McCarthy is to prevent Americans from ever noticing that liberals consistently attack their own country.

Liberals unreservedly call all conservatives fascists, racists, and enemies of civil liberties with no facts whatsoever. Reviewing the movie 8 Mile in The New Yorker, David Denby praised the interracial friendships portrayed in the movie and then said, "Perhaps the specter of such friendships is what right-wingers actually hate most." Conservatives are prohibited from citing actual facts that reflect poorly on a Democrat's patriotism, but liberals regularly fire off shots like that from their little movie reviews.(18)

Liberals malign the flag, ban the Pledge, and hold cocktail parties for America's enemies, but no one is ever allowed to cast the slightest aspersion on their patriotism. The very same article that attacked Bush for questioning Dukakis's patriotism questioned Bush's sensitivity to civil rights -- for mentioning Dukakis's veto of the Pledge. The writer scoffed: "George Bush will really be a stand-up guy when it comes to civil liberties. You betcha."(19) We could draw no conclusions from Dukakis's veto of the Pledge. It was a "smear" merely to state the implacable fact that Dukakis had vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance. But apparently it was not a smear to attack Bush's stand on "civil liberties for mentioning Dukakis's veto of the pledge."(20)

Only questions about patriotism are disallowed -- unless it is to say that liberals are the "real patriots." Phil Donahue said the "real patriots" were people who aggressively opposed their own country's war plans: "Are the protesters the real patriots?"(21) It is at least counterintuitive to say that it is more patriotic to attack America than to defend it. Even Donahue couldn't continue with such absurd logic, and quickly condemned patriotism as "the last refuge of scoundrels," and warned: "Beware of patriotism."(22)

In addition to opposing any action taken by your own country, "real patriotism" also consists of promoting the liberal agenda. After 9-...