Horowitz v Coulter; circa 2003

David Horowitz, who so staunchly defended Ann Coulter's attacks against the 9/11 widows on Larry King's show this evening by saying it was just 'satire', was not quite as forgiving back in 2003 when he reviewed her book 'Treason'.

It's a long piece in which he does offer her some praise, but here are some quotes that show his disdain for her manner and method which he could not bring himself to do this evening on behalf of the women who lost their husbands on 9/11.

But now to my dismay, I find myself unable to find such satisfaction in Conason’s reaction to Ann’s new book Treason, or in the responses of other liberals like The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen (who has also attacked me in the past). In a review in the Post, Cohen dismisses Ann’s book as “Crackpot Conservatism,” reflecting the fact that their responses are not so much yelps of outrage as cackles over what they view as an argument so over the top that only true believers will take it seriously. It is distressing when someone you admire gives credibility to liberal attacks. But that, unfortunately, is what this book has done.

Here is the opening 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.”

As polemical satire this passage may work. But what if is not satire? Is it the case that liberals like Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy sided with the enemy? Of course not. They were anti-Communists, hated by the left as “cold war liberals.” And they were not alone.
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Many of the inaccurate generalizations of Treason are indeed the hyperbole of Coulterian satire, but unfortunately the most crucial ones are not. I realized this when I saw Ann defending her claims on Chris Matthews’ Hardball:

Chris Matthews: What do you mean by the cover of this book?

Ann Coulter: What I mean is that the Democratic Party, as an entity, has become functionally treasonable, including what you’re talking about, turning over documents to the enemy….

Chris Matthews: Well, should they be prosecuted?

Ann Coulter: I wish it were that easy a problem, but that trivializes the point of my book, which is not that there are just a few dozen traitors out there. It is that the entire party cannot root for America.

Chris Matthews: Well, let’s talk about the leaders of the Democratic Party over the years. Was Jack Kennedy a traitor? Was he guilty of treason?

Ann Coulter: He was not as strong a president as a Republican would have been. But I’m referring, as I say again, I’m referring to a party that is functionally treasonable….

Chris Matthews: Was Jack Kennedy a traitor?

Ann Coulter: No, he was not a traitor.

Chris Matthews: Was he guilty of treason?

Ann Coulter: His heart was in the right place but he was surrounded by bad policymakers and he harm[ed] the country and its national security.


This exchange made me extremely uncomfortable. When somebody as smart and as gutsy as Ann Coulter equivocates over so direct a question – Was Jack Kennedy a traitor? -- you know (and they know) – that something is very wrong with the position they are defending. Equally disturbing was Coulter’s use of the phrase, “functionally treasonable” – as in “[the Democratic Party] has become functionally treasonable.” This is a problematic phrase on several counts. In the first place, “treasonable” is not a word but seems to suggest “capable of treason,” which is different from being actually treasonous. The distinction is important.

But “functionally treasonable” is also disturbingly reminiscent of the old Stalinist term “objectively fascist.” This was how people who swore their loyalty to the cause were condemned (often to death) if they deviated from the party line. Stalinists defined all dissent as “objectively” treacherous. This is not a path that conservatives should follow. When intent and individuality are separated from actions in a political context, we are entering a totalitarian realm where Ann Coulter does not really want to be.

Why is she equivocating about Jack Kennedy, anyway? Kennedy was not only not a traitor, he was not even a weak anti-Communist, as she claims. He was arguably stronger than Eisenhower or Nixon in prosecuting the Cold War. His politics were that of Ronald Reagan. He was a militant anti-Communist and a military hawk, authorizing the largest defense buildup in peacetime history. What can she mean when she says that Kennedy was “surrounded by bad policymakers” – i.e., policymakers who were presumably liberals and therefore harmed the country and its national security? Kennedy was surrounded by Republican policymakers. His secretaries of State, Defense and Treasury – the three key foreign policy posts – were all Republicans.