I finished Timeline pretty quickly, it was a fast read given that it's hard to put down when a character's life is on the line.
Treason was another matter altogether. I got about halfway through it, and just could not force myself to finish. The book was returned to the library yesterday. Maybe I'll pick it up later, it's hard to read this kind of book in the summer, when it's easy to fall asleep on the back porch while the cats cavort in the back yard, killing all the birds and squirrels they can catch (not really!! - my cats are fifteen years old, the birds and squirrels are too fast for them now)
About Treason: Ann Coulter is probably right in her assessment of Joe McCarthy as a great American patriot who was trying to save America from Communism. I do have a problem with believing that he did it flawlessly however. There were some innocent people who got hurt, along with many who probably deserved every bit of trouble they got, but the end result is that now if anyone says anything bad about people who support Communism, they get smeared with the label of McCarthyism. Too bad, because Communism seems to appeal to higher ideals without providing the means to achieve them, being thought up by an economic idiot.
I got far enough into the book to say that Lileks is right on in this post, (also see this Bleat from last year), Ann Coulter is a lumper, and lumps all Democrats under the treason label, disregarding the political views and actions of some who stood up to and question the Communist influence in our culture. Just to name one name, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat when he stood up to the Communist presence in the Screen Actors Guild. He switched parties later, but in his words, the party changed, not him.
I respect Ann Coulter's opinions for the most part. I think it is important to have people like her who forcefully argue conservative opinion. But she does have a tendency to speak carelessly sometimes. During the 2000 election recount, she claimed, on Hannity & Colmes, that a prominent judge on the Florida Supreme Court was a contributor to the Gore campaign. A clerk for the judge was on the show at the time and said no, he was a contributor to the Democratic Party, and all contributions ended when he became a judge, as Florida state law proscribed contributions from judges. Ann Coulter did not have a response to that, and that gave me the sense that the clerk was correct.
I really enjoyed Coulter's last book, Slander, which I think accurately described the liberal bias inherent in our media, especially elite opinion such as that found in The New York Times or The New Yorker. I particularly liked the way she skewered the myth of The Religious Right as an organized political entity. I wish Treason was written as well.