As noted in passing here, over at the blog Here's the Right Side of It, John L. Work responded to the latest blip from the anti-American Betrayal cabal. Cabal membership, it becomes plain, is limited to writers of multiple entries on my book that, as a condition of membership, must fail to intersect, let along grapple with its actual contents. Fabrications, ad hominem attacks are encouraged. (Some background on the cabal here for new readers.)

Longtime readers are familiar with this strange, and, for some, endlessly fascinating saga in which the men of the cabal, all of a certain age, some of whom have made a second, post-Communist career as right-wingers, endlessly fulminate because I had the temerity to write a well-sourced and well-received book that defies the conventional wisdom as they think and write it.

In so doing (and this drives them nuts), the book also argues that the nation owes a debt of gratitude to Joseph McCarthy -- specifically for his tremendous courage in attempting and in large part succeeding to expose the deep rot and corruption of the federal government, infiltrated during the Roosevelt/Truman years to a tipping point of strategic "occupation" by hundreds of covert Soviet agents (this concept drives them nuts, too). Some terrifying number of these covert agents and ideological Communists working to advance global Communism reached positions that enabled them to influence US policy. Rather than help expose this cancerous "conspiracy" (another "dogwhistle for Old Leftists), the Establishment, liberal and conservative alike, tried its best to keep its origins and extent hidden. And that's not all ... 

Such complexity, however, overtaxes this cabal. Either that, or they have chosen to ignore it, which is even more alarming. Meanwhile, why read a book when it is so much easier just to denounce it?

This latest entry is typical in structure: 1) distortion; 2) denuciation.

1) The distortion: American Betrayal "argued that the New Deal and indeed the Allied war effort against the Nazis were Communist-directed" ... 

2) The denuciation: ... so Radosh called it "yellow journalism conspiracy theories" and a whole lot more muck.

This is what John L. Work chose to blog about. John is a blogger, author, and great friend; however, in this case of assertions vs. evidence, it is important to note that he is also a retired police detective. Or, as he puts it: "I’m a retired cop. I like hard evidence." He has also actually read American Betrayal, twice.

Work continues:

Nowhere in that book did Diana West assert anything that simple.  If you’ve read West’s book, and I suspect that Mr. Capshaw has not read it, it is impossible not to conclude that American strategy in WWII was greatly influenced by Stalin’s agents, who were beyond question ensconced at the highest levels of the FDR administration.  But, you have to read West’s book to understand the validity of the idea. ...

In the first place, though, you have to want to understand; that is, you have to read and evaluate and, yes, critique in good faith. I have seen zilch evidence of good faith in this cabal's excessive output -- reviews, letters, comments, "academic" articles. And that's a fact.