Salon: Joe McCarthy lives

[kskiska]

The Bush campaign's attacks on Democrats as "soft on terrorism" recall the dark arts of the demagogic senator. And once again, the press is playing along.

By Eric Boehlert

By adopting divisive rhetoric suggesting terrorists are working to elect John Kerry, Republican leaders are posing a challenge not only for the Democratic presidential candidate but also for the press. For the first time in decades journalists find themselves reporting on a kind of public character assassination that's reminiscent of McCarthyism, according to several distinguished journalists and historians.

The former Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., gave his name to an "ism" by accusing people in the federal government of being communists -- without any evidence. CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow helped expose his methods in an hour-long documentary. McCarthy's inquisition collapsed when he attacked the U.S. Army and President Eisenhower.

The accusations that the Kerry campaign is aiding terrorists and that terrorists would prefer that he be elected president hark back to the ugliest period of the early Cold War. "It's reminiscent of red-baiting," Yoder says. He notes one significant difference, however: "McCarthy specialized in wild accusations and character assassinations, but he didn't get involved with electoral politics. today is something of a novelty."

Historian Alan Brinkley, the provost of Columbia University, agrees that even during the height of the Cold War, scathing rhetoric that called into question the loyalty or patriotism of a presidential candidate was deemed too extreme. "This kind of rhetoric never would have come into a presidential campaign during the '50s or '60s. It would come from people widely dismissed as extremists -- people on the margin of the party who were tolerated or perhaps quietly encouraged -- but never from anyone identified as the party. Now it has migrated to the very center of the campaign."

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http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/30/kerry_terrorism/index.html

[olddem43]

1. That was Nixon's game too. He won his first house seat and

his first Senate race by saying that his opponents were "soft on communism" He became such a hero to the right-wingers of the day that they put him up for VP. Ike was dumb enough to go for it. Bush is another Nixon, only far more evil. Hell, I would trade Bush for Nixon right now. Nixon would be a liberal by comparison. He even had a few scruples left. Not so, Bush.

[Tamyrlin79]

2. I'd trade Bush for Nixon...

But only if it is the pre-talking to paintings Nixon.