It's the hard right, the religious conservatives. There's no more coalition Republican. It's just an ideological war now. 4 NBC's Brian Williams was disappointed that a liberal Democrat's invoking of the rallying cry against McCarthyism didn't generate more traction. Tim Graham, the MRC's Director of Media Analysis, alerted me to a question Williams posed to the Judiciary Committee's Democratic counsel Abbe Lowell on December 21.
Nothing breaks through.
It all ends up sounding the same. And when a certain Congressman from Florida said during the debate Saturday, 'have you no sense of decency, sir,' using the same quote as what ended, in a lot of people's minds the McCarthy era, it didn't get through because it wasn't heard because it was at the same volume as everything else. The networks may be ignoring the story now, but they did cover it back in March. Chris Matthews suggested on a special Saturday Hardball on December 19 that never-released evidence about a charge of sexual assault against Bill Clinton is what convinced many moderate Republicans to back impeachment, fueling discussion on talk radio shows, including Sean Hannity filling in for Rush Limbaugh on December 21 and 23. If this were to happen, you may realize that 67 votes may appear out of thin air.