Quote Originally Posted by Red Harvest
It says a lot more to me about conservatives that they try to rewrite history on every scoundrel and scumbag who ever had conservative ideas.
Oh, Lefties too rewrite history all the time to suit some temporary interest. But as long as we use our debunking rubbers, we can have safe sex with people of all denominations.

Most rewriting is selective and serves a purpose. Same here.

McCarthy wasn't just any scumbag. He pioneered some of the 'fifth column' smear tactics that are used (or will probably be used soon) by the present administration in order to defend its terrible record on terrorism, its bungled Iraq war and its failing foreign policy.

I guess that's why some columnists and bloggers on the Right start to try and 'rehabilitate' McCarthy by means of doctored profiles like the one above.

It foreshadows some of the tactics we are probably going to see, including maybe official investigations into the integrity and reliability of prominent critics of this administration or 'rumor' campaigns of the kind already practiced by some U.S. Senators on British MP George Galloway.

Personally I think that dog won't run because American democracy won't allow it, but Conservatives are feeding it right now, just in case some convenient rabbit comes along and they feel they can give it a try.

McCarthy was a bum who lied about his war record, lied about all his political opponents during his campaigns, lied about his 'lists' of Communist subversives, and lied about just about everything else in his life, including his (homo)sexuality, his excessive drinking, his tax evasion, the money he took as a Senator from the Pepsi-Cola Company, etcetera, etcetera.

And oh yes, Joe McCarthy did conduct 'investigations' and smear campaigns for years, not as a member of the HUAC (which he wasn't), but as Chairman of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. His investigations were a travesty of justice and decency, and most of his them were directed against political opponents who had nothing to do whatsoever with Communism. He was fed a few names by Hoover who later dropped him when he outran his usefulness.

In the end the Senate, President Eisenhower and the US Army had enough of his shrill excesses; the Senate censured him and McCarthy quickly and conveniently drank himself to death, something he should have done many years earlier.