Senator McCarthy was right in many/all of his accusations

Recently I've been hearing more conservative pundits lionize and praise Joe McCarthy for his perceived patriotic work. Anne Coulter and Stanton Evans being two of his main advocates. I think this debate topic is your way of doing the same thing. I just think the wording of the debate topic lends itself to us comparing and analyzing different victims of McCarthy instead of directly addressing whether or not Joe McCarthy made a positive or negative impact on Washington and American politics. Korezaan put it well, am I just trying to prove the 51% of his victims were innocent and did not plot to overthrow the American government? If so, I would suggest (granted that you agree to a slight modification of this debate topic) that we change it in order to make this debate more meaningful and significant. My proposed new topic is: Senator McCarthy made a positive impact on American politics. You would represent the Pro and I would argue the Con. Does this sound fair? "McCarthy has been portrayed as a "brawler"; making pointless (and baseless) accusations for his own benefit. " I think McCarthy's infamy is more related to his methods. His rise to fame was based solely on his "list" of government employees that he claimed were actually spies for the Soviet Union. By 1950 he assumed his position in the national spot-light because his witch-hunt approach to combatting a perceived communist threat within the government was very popular during a period of extreme anti-communist suspicion inspired by the tensions of the Cold War. His extremely publicized trials which questioned people's patriotism in an undeniably demagogic fashion ultimately lead to several executions and the suicide of several innocent people because of the public disgrace they had received. This includes several engineers from Voice of America (the official external radio and television broadcasting service of the United States federal government) whose public humiliation lead them to commit suicide regardless of a Soviet spy ever being generated. (. http://en.wikipedia.org...) 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)! Annie Lees Moss is a famous example of McCarthy's brow-beating leading to unfairly demonizing people. Annie Lee 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. I'd also like to point out that it wasn't just Democrats that opposed these tactics. Dwight 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". You speak of recently revealed files (2003) that Stanton argued revealed that all the "victims" did indeed have Soviet connections. This doesn't surprise me coming from a right-wing author so I checked what the United States Congress decided about these recovered files, this is what REPUBLICAN Senator Susan Collins had to say about them: "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 agree with Stanton's assertion that McCarthy's victims were criminals. 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 do hope you consider modifying this debate but in case you don't I will continue to provide examples of people who's charges were never substantiated or with people who were incorrectly/criminally victimized. I would just ask you to tell me how many people need to be proven innocent for me to refute you? "Many" is pretty ambiguous don't you think? I just need to find a copy of these transcripts of the McCarthy trials that were released by Congress! Know where I can get them? Thanks again Sola! -connor