Posted on 05/25/2007 8:07:16 AM PDT by K-oneTexas
Joe McCarthy: Gone But Certainly Not Forgotten by Michael M. Bates
May 25, 2007
It would be remiss of me not to note that this month marks 50 years since the death of Senator Joe McCarthy. What would Commies, pinkos, socialists, leftists, liberals, and their lackeys and handmaidens have done for the past half century if they didn’t have old Joe to kick around?
Even after all this time, the Wisconsin Republican is in the news. Recently, the Los Angeles Times ran an obituary for Bernard Gordon, described by the newspaper as “one of the younger screenwriters blacklisted during the McCarthy era.” Mr. Gordon, we’re told, was “unable to find work because of the blacklist.”
There was a blacklist, but it existed a long time before McCarthy jumped on the anti-Communist bandwagon. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated Red infiltration in Hollywood and called “the Hollywood Ten” of writers, directors and producers to testify in 1947. McCarthy started his crusade against Communism three years later.
Bernard Gordon was subpoenaed by HUAC in 1952, but was never called to testify. That was also the year of his first produced screenplay. So did he actually find himself out of work because of the blacklist?
Not according to the Writers Guild of America, West. Using other people’s names, he kept quite busy. The Corrected Blacklist Credits list, as maintained by the guild, shows Mr. Gordon worked on a picture in 1954, one in 1956, five in 1957 and one in 1958. The LA Times obituary states he made more than 20 films. That doesn’t suggest he was unable to work because of the blacklist.
Another fresh reference to Joe came from an Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist earlier this month. She wrote of a Republican congressional candidate who “sounds as though he’s running to replace U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the notorious Wisconsin Republican whose Commie-baiting smear tactics ruined lives. . . ”
The claim that McCarthy destroyed the lives of many innocent people is a preferred refrain of those who don’t know what in the world they’re talking about. The respected author M. Stanton Evans has an excellent reply when challenged with that assertion: “Name one.”
When Ann Coulter asked Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to identify a McCarthy-tormented innocent, the best the former history teacher could come up with was Dalton Trumbo, one of HUAC’s “Hollywood Ten.” You might think the self-proclaimed no spin genius would know that senators don’t chair House Committees. You’d be wrong.
My own experience with McCarthy detractors is they’re no better informed than O’Reilly. Long in loathing for Joe, they’re invariably short on facts. One acquaintance told me he could just never forgive or forget how McCarthy attacked Bert Parks in a televised hearing.
Only it wasn’t Bert Parks, the longtime host of Miss America pageants, it was an actor named Larry Parks. And it wasn’t McCarthy, but HUAC. And it wasn’t televised. And it was years before McCarthy kicked his struggle with Communism off in his 1950 Wheeling, West Virginia speech.
Otherwise, the acquaintance had all his facts right. Besides, the McCarthy era encompasses anything bad that happened and relates to anti-Communism, regardless of when it really occurred. It could just as easily have been coined the Truman/Eisenhower era or the Willie Mays era or the Bishop Fulton J. Sheen era. Those, however, simply wouldn’t have conveyed the genuine horror of the period when Tail Gunner Joe purportedly rode roughshod over everyone’s civil liberties.
Shortly after his Wheeling speech, Democrats insisted McCarthy name names, right here and now. His response on the Senate floor:
“The Senator from Illinois demanded, loudly, that I furnish all the names. I told him at that time that so far as I was concerned, I thought that would be improper; that I did not have all the information about these individuals. . . .I have enough to convince me that either they are members of the Communist Party or they have given great aid to the Communists: I may be wrong. That is why I said that unless the Senate demanded that I do so, I would not submit this publicly, but I would submit it to any committee - and would let the committee go over these in executive session. It is possible that some of these persons will get a clean bill of health. . . .”
Yes, he was so very irresponsible, making outrageous accusations and annihilating blameless people. Little wonder that only last month a Colorado Springs Gazette sportswriter wrote: “In the early 1950s, Sen. Joe McCarthy recklessly - and often inaccurately - accused hundreds of Americans of Communist sympathies. His name will forever define a savage, sad time in our history.”
And this was in the sports pages for heaven’s sake. A Google search on “McCarthyism” today shows over 300 news articles using the term. “McCarthy era” brings up more than 150. Buried for 50 years, Joe McCarthy’s still taking a beating from the fellow-traveling press. He was no saint, but the mainstream media rarely takes the time to get their details straight. Any similarity between what we read and historical reality is strictly coincidental. Mike M. Bates has written a weekly column of opinion - or nonsense, depending on your viewpoint - since 1985 for the (southwest suburban Chicago) Oak Lawn Reporter Newspapers. Additionally, his articles have appeared in the Congressional Record, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Mensa Journal.
Joe McCarthy was a true American hero
For all the “victims” that’ve come forward, Joe must’ve lived to be 100.
And this was in the sports pages for heaven’s sake.
Reminds me of the story the other day of a high school kid being forced to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" in 4 separate classes, including twice in one class -- and that class was Phys Ed!!
Joe will always be hated by the communist and socialist left in this country — why?? Because he was right. So absolutely right. Now look at what we are dealing with....
pingaling.....hoping you still have that piece written by Sen. McCarthy’s secretary.....
I remember that my father had a “crazy old aunt” that thought the
US guvmint was loaded with Communist spies/operatives in the 1950s.
The family generally humored her and just thought she was a little
over-fevered on the issue.
After seeing the PBS NOVA episode linked below (”Secrets, Lies
and Atomic Spies”), I realized how on-target the “crazy old aunt” was.
I almost had a heart attack because the PBS production says that McCarthy
was right about the Communist infiltration, even though his aim
for specific targets was sometimes in error.
This show aired multiple times on the big PBS station in Los Angeles...
I wonder if some of the current Hollywood crowd was interested to
see what REALLY happened in the time of “The Black List”.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/
Just an historical question. Wasn’t the committee’s real name THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES? The Left likes the other name: THE HOUSE UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE.
“When Ann Coulter asked Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to identify a
McCarthy-tormented innocent, the best the former history teacher could
come up with was Dalton Trumbo, one of HUAC’s “Hollywood Ten.””
Interesting sidebar on Trumbo: he was a self-appointed FBI informant
that “named names” in reporting people (pacifists and right-wingers)
that requested his book “Johnny Got His Gun” during WWII.
(presuming those wanting the book would promote a diminuation of
the war effort, especially to the USSR)
Tip of the hat to David Horowitz and Front Page Mag for the linked article!
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1859
Good question.
Joe McCarthy was a great American patriot, and if you ever find yourself in an argument about McCarthy with some liberal, ask them to explain why Bobby Kennedy not only worked for McCarthy, but McCarthy was a family friend of the Kennedys, and there are very few (if any) recorded instances of ANY Kennedy saying anything critical of Joe.
Don’t expect them to have an explanation, they will most likely sputter, drool, turn purple and rip their hair out, lol.
That's why Ed Murrow was able to beat him.
It was also called "the house committee on un-American activities" in this 1952 Chicago Tribune article on Comrade Studs Terkel.
Thanks for posting.
Bobby thought so highly of Joe McCarthy that he asked him to be his daughter's Godfather. And Bobby flew to Wisconsin for Joe's funeral.
I'm not certain it was Murrow who primarily beat McCarthy:
Al Gore, Edward R. Murrow and Senator McCarthy
Because of the Congressional hearings inspired by McCarthy’s activities, hundreds of communists and other security risks were flushed out of high places in government.
McCarthy, a twice elected senator from Wisconsin and a WWII war hero is still hated to this day by the left because he chased so many communist spies out of Washington. Somewhere Alger Hiss is still hissing.
McCarthy wss wrong. He UNDERESTIMATED the number of communists in Washington.
I don’t know about you, Eagle, but I watched Joe McCarthy’s investigations on tv, and was 100% behind the man. Any lives that were ruined were not ruined by Joe McCarthy, but by their own actions. God rest his valiant soul.
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