George Will: Blaming the Right for the Giffords Attack Is Pure McCarthyism

http://www.newsmax.com/GeorgeWill/GeorgeWill-Tucson-Giffords-teaparty/2011/01/10/id/382403 ^

[GOPJ]

I think you’re right - he’s using the words the left can understand... not that they’ll ‘get’ what he’s saying ...

[safeasthebanks]

Some let me paraphrase your long winded cut and paste response to my request for you to name someone who was a victim of, in your words, "unjust demagogic attacks" from McCarthy.....

"Ummm, I can't name one person."

Care to let us all in on where you got your "brief biography" from? I recommend reading "Treason" by Ann Coulter for a more, shall we say, FACT BASED interpretation.

[irish_links]

You seem to be the fact challenged poster in this exchange safe. The material I appended was produced by the Appleton Public Library, Joe's beloved home town. I think they give him a fair shake, but you can draw your own conclusions.

As a practical matter, I think you give McCarthy too great a benefit of the doubt. His tactics were demagogic and unjust even though he didn't “name names.” Given the climate of the times, his accusations undoubtedly caused many government employees who were New Dealers or Henry Wallace supporters to come under the suspicion of being secret communist party members, a crime at the time under the Smith Act, if you recall.

If falsely accusing citizens of being members of a subversive organization is okay with you so long as you don't publicly announce their names, fine. But if it is, be careful when you criticize Paul Krugman and other despicable lefties when they perpetrate similar calumnies now. For my part, I'm not cool with the tactics used by McCarthy during the Fifties and I'm not cool with them now.

[safeasthebanks]

Please, enlighten me, what facts am I challenged on - that was my original question, remember? Did I post something like this: "I believe that he engaged in unjust demagogic attacks against political dissenters." and then have ZERO names to back it up, even after being specifically asked to name them?

YOU are the one who made the first statement, YOU are the one that needs to supply proof (you know, that's how an educated, adult debate works...)

McCarthy's name has not become the dirty word that it is because "...his accusations undoubtedly caused many government employees who were New Dealers or Henry Wallace supporters to come under the suspicion...", rather, the "conventional wisdom" is that McCarthy was some type of monster that ruined lives (you know, SPECIFIC PEOPLE) with unfounded accusations about them being communists.

So again, PLEASE, provide me at least ONE NAME of a government employee that was an innocent victim of McCarthyism. Just one. I'm begging.

And please educate yourself on why a library, even one from "Joe's beloved home town", may not exactly provide an unbiased view on things. Here's a hint - google "political bias in libraries" and see what pops up.

As for your bizarre Krugman analogy, my my my where do I begin....Krugman and his allies are the LAST people you should be using in your argument. THEY ARE NAMING NAMES!!! (Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Levin, Savage, etc). Even the few that don't name a specific person, it's crystal clear who they are referring to. SHEEEESH!

[irish_links]

Look safe, you seem to draw a big distinction between making veiled insinuations about unnamed people in the Department of State and the foreign policy team of the Truman administration and actually “naming names.” My view is that the former tactic is little better than the latter from the point of view of the persons placed under suspicion. Moreover, I think making insinuations directed at individuals within a relatively small group without having the decency to specify whom you are accusing is actually more cowardly than making the accusations point blank.

So don't badger me about naming the names that weren't named. McCarthy didn't name the names because he didn't have the evidence. He went after Zwicker on no substance and had his head handed to him. His insinuations were damaging to the Republic, however, and he is rightly criticized for having been responsible for the damage.

The evidence is clear that commies were thick at State during the Roosevelt administration and that they had a heavy influence on the Wallace campaign. But this problem was largely addressed by the time McCarthy went on his “witch hunt.” Were spies still around? Sure. But McCarthy didn't know who they were any more than Truman or Eisenhower or Nixon did. So his fusillades were pointless and innocents were hurt in the crossfire.

I don't want to play the political game that way. It's ugly and damaging and makes us no better morally than the despicable Krugmam, Dionne, Matthews, Olbermann and Rich. We must be better than that or we are easily accused of base tactics and motivations.

I like Ann Coulter too, but she falls prey to the temptation to resort to demagogic attacks and cheap us vs. them rhetoric. As I understand her argument (I did not read the book), she defends McCarthy primarily on the basis that there were indeed spies in the government, as verified by the Verona files. I don't really think that surprises anyone with a cerebellum, and I don't think it justifies McCarthy's tactics and actions, which devolved quickly from a admirable Cassandra’s warning to an ugly, self-aggrandizing with hunt.

So, let's just agree to disagree about tail-gunner Joe.

[safeasthebanks]

As I CLEARLY stated, McCarthy is not considered the villain that he is because he was "making veiled insinuations about unnamed people in the Department of State and the foreign policy team of the Truman administration". McCarthy is remembered as some red-baiting drunk that destroyed SPECIFIC people's lives by incorrectly NAMING them as commies.

"But this problem was largely addressed by the time McCarthy went on his “witch hunt.” How and by whom was this problem addressed?

"It's ugly and damaging and makes us no better morally than the despicable Krugman, Dionne, Matthews, Olbermann and Rich" These clowns ARE naming names. FWIW, "naming names" is not in and of itself a problem, as long as the names you're naming are guilty of what you say they are. The blood libels being committed by the idiots you mention aren't a problem because they are "making veiled insinuations". They are a problem because Krugman et al are leveling specific (FALSE) charges against specific people. I can't make this any clearer.

"As I understand her argument (I did not read the book), she defends McCarthy primarily on the basis that there were indeed spies in the government..." That's NOT her argument. Unfortunately I don't have the book here with me, and my memory is not good enough to recall the specific commies that McCarthy (correctly) had suspicions about, and, in some cases, did name.

We both seem to have exhausted our points on this topic, so I won't bother you later with another post on this thread with more specific info from Coulter's book (unless you want me to). I do recommend getting hold of a copy and reading at least the section on McCarthy. Some other sections are kinda redundant and/or do beat certain (obvious) points to death.

[irish_links]

I see your point and it is not invalid. But the discussion began in regard to Will's use of the term McCarthyism, not on the question of what “they” remember McCarthy to be.

Often "they" want to suggest that there were no communist spies working in the Truman administration, that the Whites and Hisses of the world weren't communist agents but simply principled and sophisticated liberals, the Goldbergs were simply misguided do-gooders and that anticommunism was some sort of mass hysteria whipped up by anticommunist fanatics like McCarthy and the John Birch society.

The facts are that communist subversion was going on, White and Hiss were agents, others associated with them were fellow travelers at best, the Goldbergs were active traiters and McCarthy was correct that the Democrats sought to downplay the threat and in respect to the Wallace crowd were active appeasers at best and Uncle Joe sympathizers at worst. But Will is right also in ascribing a certain scurrilous tactic of low insinuation to McCarthy and to Krugman. Yeah, Krugman is naming names, but he only insinuates that Palin et. al. are inciting violence. That's the base charge and that's the McCarthyite tactic that Will is boring in on here. You can't let your admiration for McCarthy blind you to his faults.It's okay to defend McCarthy from the lefties. Indeed, his crusade had merit initially. But it quickly became meretricious, and it is a fool's errand to suggest otherwise.