The Maureen Dowd of the conservatives?

Dorothy Rabinowitz assesses Ann Coulter’s new book Treason as the work of a cynic selling a bill of goods to a right-wing audience: “A conspiracy so vast.” I have not read the book, but I cringed when I read that it undertakes to rehabilitate the reputation of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Among other serious works, I have read historian David Oshinsky’s scrupulous account of the McCarthy phenomenon, A Conspiracy So Immense, and I do know that McCarthy did great and lasting damage to the cause of anti-Communism. It is difficult to imagine what legitimate purpose Coulter is serving by reopening this particular argument, although I hesitate to say more without having read her book.