Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Shades Of Joe McCarthy

This should address any doubts you may still harbor as to whether or not old Pete is a kook. Reuters (07.11.06), via The Washington Monthly:
"The Bush administration is preparing a crackdown on intelligence leaks to the media and will try to pursue prosecutions in some recent cases, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra also suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al Qaeda." Republican says US readying crackdown on leaks
"'More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by Communists al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations,' he said." Ahhh, yes. Rumor. Innuendo. Hearsay. Political Opportunism. Crass and Callous Careerism. What fond memories: "'I have here in my hand a list of 57 people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party, and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.'" "This speech resulted in a flood of press attention to McCarthy and set him on the path that would characterize the rest of his career and life." To give you an idea of the way he operated, when Joe came back to Wisconsin after serving in WWII, he ran against Robert La Follette in 1946 for the US Senate. During the campaign, Joe attacked him as unpatriotic because La Follette hadn't enlisted. This was even though La Follette had been 46 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and as such was too old to enlist. Here's more: "McCarthy's first years in the Senate were unimpressive. People also started coming forward claiming that he had lied about his war record. Another problem for McCarthy was that he was being investigated for tax offences and for taking bribes from the Pepsi-Cola Company. In May, 1950, afraid that he would be defeated in the next election, McCarthy held a meeting with some of his closest advisers and asked for suggestions on how he could retain his seat. Edmund Walsh, a Roman Catholics priest, came up with the idea that he should begin a campaign against communist subversives working in the Democratic administration. As in the whole Communist scare started as a ruse to divert attention as to whether or not Joe was a two-bit crook. Nice.

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