FC: Jamie McCarthy on "treason" claims from the right and the left

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 13:29:35 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Gerard Van der Leun on traitors, free speech, and Ashcroftitus"

    Previous Politech discussion, from April:
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-04658.html
    
    And let's not remember Ashcroft's remarks from December 2001:
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-02900.html
    -Declan
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue,  1 Jul 2003 15:32:12 -0400
    From: Jamie McCarthy <jamieat_private>
    Subject: Re: "treason" again
    To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    
    Now might be an apropos time to look at accusations of treason,
    considering that Ann Coulter's book of that title just came out.
    Here's a quick look at her use of the words "treason," "traitor,"
    and "treachery":
    
    http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20030630.html
    
    I got interested in this subject in late March when I was flipping
    through the Federalist Papers looking for something else.  As you
    noted a few months back, the Constitution not only clearly defines
    treason, it lays out strict conditions under which a conviction must
    be obtained, namely, two witnesses or a confession in open court.
    Treason consists of one of two types of crime, both being
    intentional acts of betrayal:  "levying war," or "adhering to [the
    United States'] enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
    
    To explain why such strict rules, Madison writes in The Federalist
    No. 43, complaining that, in other societies,
    
         ...new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great
         engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of
         free government, have usually wreaked their alternate
         malignity on each other....
    
    Note that no one has actually been convicted of treason in the
    United States since World War Two -- nor, I think, even charged.
    (John Walker Lindh pled to charges using similar language to the
    Constitutional definition, but he was not formally accused of the
    crime of treason.)
    
    So I set up a search on Nexcerpt.com for media mentions of the
    words "treason" and "traitor."  My dictionary defines "traitor" as
    "a person who betrays his or her country, cause, friends, etc.;
    one guilty of treason or treachery."
    
    Nexcerpt searches a bunch of news websites for keywords and
    reports new hits to you every day.  Very useful for this kind of
    obsession!
    
    So here are some of the hits since then.  I'm leaving out the bulk
    of the Peter Arnett furor, and many accusations not U.S.-specific
    (recently there was a rash of arrests for treason in Cuba, for
    example, and the insult is popular in the U.K.).  I'm also omitting
    *allusions* to treason -- there are numerous hits on the phrase
    "aid and comfort," with the obvious implication, for example.
    
    The accusation of treason does come from both the left and the
    right.  The leftist site CounterPunch *loves* the word, for example.
    I've tried to draw up the list below impartially, based on what
    Nexcerpt and Google fed me, so if you care about such things, you
    can draw your own conclusions about which part of the spectrum finds
    this denigration most delicious.
    
    I made this list of new-fangled treasons from April to June 2003,
    and some of the URLs may no longer work.
    
    
    
    October 22, 2002
    Accuser:  David Horowitz
    Traitor:  Noam Chomsky
    http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/BlogEntry.asp?ID=68
    
         If the word "traitor" has any meaning at all, Noam Chomsky is
         an American traitor... treason like Chomsky's is regarded with
         such complacency...
    
    
    
    February 6, 2003
    Accuser:  New York Sun
    Traitor:  Anti-war protestors
    http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:jWzEilGahtsC:www.nysun.com/sunarticle.asp%3FartID%3D529&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
    
         And there is no reason to doubt that the "anti-war" protesters
         -- we prefer to call them protesters against freeing Iraq --
         are giving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam Hussein...
    
         So the New York City police could do worse, in the end, than
         to allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each
         participant, with an eye toward preserving at least the
         possibility of an eventual treason prosecution.  Thus fully
         respecting not just some, but all of the constitutional
         principles at stake.
    
    
    
    February 27
    Accuser:  Don Imus
    Traitor:  Dan Rather
    http://www.newsmax.com/archive/print.shtml?a=2003/2/27/83010
    
         Radio talker Don Imus apparently wasn't very impressed by his
         friend Dan Rather's interview with Saddam Hussein last night,
         telling his audience Thursday morning that the CBS News
         anchorman went into the tank big time for the Baghdad butcher.
    
         "It was gutless and cowardly," pronounced the I-man of
         Rather's performance. "And treasonous," he added...
    
    
    
    February 28
    Accuser:  Tom Marsland
    Traitor:  Dan Rather
    http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/2/27/165634.shtml
    
         In my opinion, a 'Rather treasonous Dan.'
    
    
    
    March 4
    Accuser:  Adam Sparks
    Traitor:  Ramsey Clark
    http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/4/132313.shtml
    
         Ramsey Clark, a former attorney general under President Lyndon
         Baines Johnson, seems to fit the definition of having
         committed treasonous behavior in spades.
    
    
    
    March 8
    Accuser:  David Horowitz
    Traitor:  left-wing protestors who "disrupt"
    http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/printable.asp?ID=125
    
         ...coalition that organized the New York Iraq protests
         announced that when the shooting starts in Iraq the so-called
         peace movement would take action to "disrupt the normal flow
         of life" in America.  This is thinly veiled code for sabotage
         and sedition (treason).
    
    
    
    March 22
    Accuser:  Anonymous caller to Savannah Morning News
    Traitor:  The Dixie Chicks, I think
    http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/032203/LOCvox.shtml
    
         Yes, you're right, people do have freedom of speech, but when
         it involves our president, when he's doing the best he can,
         it's called treason.
    
    
    
    March 30
    Accuser:  the first Bush administration, allegedly
    Traitor:  Peter Arnett, allegedly
    http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/30/sprj.irq.arnett.transcript/
    
         Arnett:  Whenever I gave a report on civilian casualties on
         CNN (in the first Gulf War) the Pentagon and the Bush
         administration got very angry and called me a traitor.
    
    
    
    March 31
    Accuser:  Anthony Gancarski of CounterPunch
    Traitor:  Richard Perle
    http://www.counterpunch.com/gancarski03312003.html
    
         Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution defines treason
         as giving aid and comfort, or "adhering" to our enemies. I
         believe 'adhering' sums up Richard Perle's job description
         pretty well.
    
    
    
    March 31
    Accuser:  Guy Milliere in FrontPageMagazine.com
    Traitor:  France
    http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6976
    
         The United States has to understand they have nothing to
         expect from today's France except nastiness, treason, and
         cheating.
    
    
    
    April 2
    Accuser:  John Podhoretz of the New York Post
    Traitor:  Peter Arnett
    http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/72465.htm
    
         The question is whether Arnett's comments on Iraqi state-run
         television, a propaganda arm of Saddam Hussein's regime,
         constitute "aid and comfort" to the enemy.  If you analyze his
         remarks strictly as a matter of rhetoric, the answer is
         unambiguously: YES.  ... Arnett made a choice that was, quite
         literally, criminal.
    
    
    
    April 2
    Accuser:  U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.
    Traitor:  Peter Arnett
    http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/4/2/171303
    
         "I think he should be brought back and tried as a traitor to
         the United States of America, for his aiding and abetting the
         Iraqi government during a war," Bunning said Tuesday in a
         conference call with reporters.
    
    
    
    April 2
    Accuser:  Michael Reagan
    Traitor:  the mainstream media
    http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6995
    
         Yet many in the mainstream media are criticizing their
         colleagues who are embedded with the troops...  That sort of
         "neutrality" used to be seen for what it is: treason.
    
    
    
    April 3
    Accuser:  Jeremy Robb of ChronWatch
    Traitor:  Peter Arnett
    http://www.chronwatch.com/featured/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2110
    
         the traitorous MSNBC journalist, Peter Arnett, is giving
         interviews to Iraqi television claiming that the original
         war plan has "failed" and is being redrawn
    
    
    
    April 4
    Accuser:  Tom Gorman of CounterPunch
    Traitor:  anyone who supports the war, plus Tip O'Neill
    http://www.counterpunch.com/gorman04042003.html
    
         If O'Neil knew that American lives were being sacrificed to
         boost the President's poll numbers, his failure to act... is,
         by any fair definition, an act of treason.
    
         I would argue further and say that those who do support the
         war are committing treason.
    
    
    
    April 5
    Accuser:  Kevin Willmann of ChronWatch
    Traitor:  Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
    http://www.chronwatch.com/featured/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2176
    
         ...the treasonous US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)...
    
    
    
    April 5
    Accuser:  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
    Traitor:  any human shield
    http://www.naplesnews.com/03/04/naples/d920973a.htm
    
         Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he wants the Justice
         Department to prosecute any American who actively helps
         nations engaged in hostilities with the United States, and
         notes the Constitution clearly states that it is treasonable
         to give aid to the country's enemies.
    
    
    
    April 6
    Accuser:  Leonard G. Horowitz
    Traitor:  the military, for warning us about biological warfare
    http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/040603_sars_scam.html
    
         Why have American military officials, beginning with Secretary
         of Defense William Cohen during the Clinton years, publicized
         America's greatest vulnerability lies in the realm of biological
         weapons wielded by terrorists?  Is this not a form of treason
         against the United States to relay such sensitive intelligence
         to potential enemies through the mainstream press?
    
    
    
    April 6
    Accuser:  Dick Goins, in the Orange County Register
    Traitor:  anti-war banner carriers
    http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=33427§ion=COMMENTARY&subsection=COMMENTARY_COLUMNS&year=2003&month=4&day=9
    
         In San Francisco, an "anti-war" protest banner read: "We
         Support Our Troops When They Shoot Their Officers."
    
         These are not actions permitted by the First Amendment.
         Instead, they could be considered acts of treason, as defined
         in the Constitution...
    
    
    
    April 12
    Accuser:  Jihad Unspun
    Traitor:  Government policy-makers
    http://www.jihadunspun.net/intheatre_internal.php?article=51306&list=/home.php
    
         Those who don't want the troops to "win" - because they'd
         rather see them come home alive, immediately - are branded as
         "traitors." Yet the real traitors are the ones who sent them
         off to die, in order for a truly un-American economic model to
         be artificially sustained.
    
    
    
    April 14
    Accuser:  Jerry Falwell
    Traitor:  Prof. Nicholas De Genova
    http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/14/15731.shtml
    
         Newsday reported recently that Columbia University assistant
         professor Nicholas De Genova, appearing at an anti-war
         gathering, called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq,
         saying, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that
         help defeat the U.S. military."
    
         The Columbia administration refused to take action, instead
         hiding behind "academic freedom" that allegedly protects a
         professor's right to speak his treasonous derision.
    
    
    
    April 16
    Accuser:  Prof. Lloyd Caroll
    Traitor:  accountants who outsource tax filings
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=43584938
    
         "The very notion of transmitting confidential tax data - from
         Social Security and employer identification numbers to
         financial information - to any foreign country, even Canada,
         borders on the reprehensible at best, and is treasonous at
         worst," [Prof, Lloyd Caroll, head of the accounting department
         at Manhattan Borough Community College] fumed.
    
    
    
    April 17
    Accuser:  Brian Flynn of The Sun (London)
    Traitor:  Scott Ritter
    http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003031602,00.html
    
         Traitor now a paedophile
    
         A RENEGADE weapons inspector who embraced Saddam's vile regime
         has been exposed as a child sex pervert.
    
    
    
    Late April (I lost the exact date and the URL is broken now)
    Accuser:  Tennessee State Sen. Tim Burchett
    Traitor:  any Bush critic
    http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/todays_editorial/article/0,1406,KNS_362_1927623,00.html
    
         [Burchett called for]  the deportation of political
         dissenters who publicly criticized President Bush's decision
         to invade Iraq.
    
         "That's treason, not patriotism," he declared. "They ought
         to be run out of the country and not allowed back."
    
    
    
    And finally, a bit of satire:  the "Traitor List"!
    
    http://www.probush.com/traitor.htm
    
    
    
    
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