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

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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 <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Subject: Re: "treason" again
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

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&section=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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