In defense of McCarthy

I love the new topic because it lets us really judge McCarthy for what he was on multiple levels. But I sincerely doubt that you lie in the middle of the spectrum on this particular debate. Democrats and Republicans can both agree that McCarthy's communist witch-hunt ruined innocent lives/careers as well as employed methods that were both illegal and morally beneath what is expected of a United States Senator. You mention JFK but personal indiscretions can hardly compare to professionally unethical behavior. My point being with all of this that the lens of retrospection sees McCarthy's paranoia and demagogic accusations as a dangerous presence in American politics, this is not a matter of Left and Right. Don't take my word for it, take a friend from the right, Senator Susan Collins who investigated (through a senate sub-committee) the same FBI documents you (and right wing political pundits like Stanton Evans and Anne Coulter) claim somehow justifies McCarthy's behavior and accusations. "Senator McCarthy's zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur." It would appear that not even Republicans can defend McCarthy and indeed found his victims to be innocent and unjustly targetted. You admit to his practices being "far from perfect" but it would appear that his practices were actually just detrimental and indeed undermined basic rights by using fear and emotional rallying to demonize people and humiliate them in publicized trials. Please don't take this from me though, but also please look outside of right-wing author's assessment of McCarthy because the overwhelming consensus of contemporary historians agree that McCarthy was a demagogic figure that brought with him a dark period in American history marked by fear and suspicion. I'm going to re-cover some of my original examples of innocent people that were accused of being Soviet spies by McCarthy. We also need to be clear about what these accusations were. It wasn't so much that his victims were communists (which in itself is not illegal) but more importantly he accused the communists of being Soviet spies or some other tangible threat to the United States. So when you say his accusations were "right" I contend that they are indeed flawed because although he might have identified someone within the government with a socialist ideology it does not mean they posed any threat to the United States (which he explicitly accused them of doing)! Lets start with the Eisenhower Administration (Republican) and McCarthy's accusations against them. Eisenhower's presidency was plagued by McCarthy's accusations involving Eisenhower's foreign policy advisor John Davies. Nine investigations of Davies' loyalty between 1948 and 1954 failed to produce any evidence of disloyalty or Communist sympathies. His opposition to Communism was a matter of record; indeed, in 1950 he had advocated a preventive nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in 1954, under political pressure from McCarthy and Senator Patrick McCarran, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asked Davies to resign. A true American tragedy that prompted Eisenhower to fight back (in a discreet manner that wouldn't also get him accused of being a communist). He never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by showing that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. He defended this approach by stating, "I don't want to "get down in the gutter with that guy". Next there is Annie Lee Moss. Now I noticed that you spent about half of round 1 trying to establish a strong connection between the Communist Party of America and the Soviet Union's plots to somehow internally infiltrate and overthrow the American government. Let's be straight about something. A political ideology is not in itself proof that an individual is trying to overthrow the government! These kind of assumptions are dangerous and are what fueled the Red-Scare mentality of the 50s! Annie Lees Moss is a famous example of McCarthy's brow-beating leading to unfairly demonizing people. Moss had received a socialist newspaper to her house. She was an elderly African American woman with no intent of compromising national security but because of McCarthy's multiple attacks on her personality and loud and drunk (he was a huge alcoholic and was reported to be intoxicated during the afternoon trials) accusations she eventually tried to deny that she even received the newspaper! This lead to her imprisonment on perjury charges until it was finally concluded that McCarthy's brow beating provoked the lie from Annie Lee. The other problem was that all of McCarthy's information was technically hearsay and he failed to provide Mrs. Moss with due process by presenting any source for his information. Finally there is Voice of America. Voice of America is in charge of federal radio and television broadcasting. Several engineers from Voice of America were accused of having ties to the Soviet government and were brutally interrogated. VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, with one of its engineers even committing suicide. Most of the others were left with ruined careers. (http://en.wikipedia.org...) With my remaining space I want to keep refuting this perceived link between the CPA and the Soviet government. You rightfully point out that the Soviet government did give money to the CPA. But you do realize that the United States government funds political parties with a similar ideology. The point is that it is beneficial for the Soviet Union in the long run to support a political party that bridged the gap between otherwise incompatible political systems! This isn't to suggest that they were trying to incite some sort of violent revolution though. You need to be more honest about how miniscule this link really was.The total annual funding from the entire Soviet Union didn't even amount to over 50,000 dollars. By 1958 it had reached 75,000 dollars but this is nothing in comparison to some of the American funding that we actively participate in. We don't fund political parties with the expectation that they will violently overthrow their respective governments (sometimes we do. but mostly we fund legit political parties with similar ideologies). You have to substantiate McCarthy's accusations by proving that these people were infiltrating the government on behalf of the Soviets. Soviet funding for the CPA doesn't prove this! This is going to be hard fought I can tell. I look forward to this exchange. Thanks! Haha and I'm sorry if some of these paragraphs seem familiar =). -connor