President Bush Mimics Joseph McCarthy (2/20/06)
by Dean Hartwell
Shortly after 9/11, President George W. Bush said, “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists.” He left no middle ground and condemned those who have little use for either side.
But his remarks were nothing new. As the recent Oscar-nominated movie Good Night and Good Luck has reminded us, almost fifty years earlier, Senator Joseph McCarthy said that the people of the United States were either with him or they were with the communists. Those who protected the rights of those accused of being communists were cast in the same lot as the communists themselves.
Bush and McCarthy shared other tactics as well. Each pursued actions of dubious legalities. Bush has approved of wiretapping United States citizens without a warrant. His supporters now struggle to defend this action on shaky legal grounds, saying that the Constitution gives the President the power to conduct wars like the one on terrorism as he sees fit.
McCarthy’s questionable tactics revolved around the legal status of his targets. He attacked communists as though they were criminals, often hauling suspected communists before his Senate committee and accusing them with hearsay and innuendo. Other than the fact that hearsay and innuendo would not be admissible in a court of law, the tactic was wrong because the United States Congress has never declared membership in the Communist Party to be illegal.
Another troubling parallel between Bush and McCarthy is the weakness of their opposition. Modern-day Democrats mostly voted for the use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq and for the supposedly anti-terrorist laws like the Patriot Act. Bush Administration officials apprised leading Democrats of the plan several months ago to use the National Security Agency to wiretap without warrants United States citizens allegedly involved with Al Qaeda. However, no Democrat was willing to voice their concerns at the time publicly, perhaps for fear of being labeled “soft on terrorism.”
McCarthy also had few critics in Congress. Even Democratic Representative John Kennedy of Massachusetts echoed some of the comments McCarthy made, particularly about the Communist takeover of China in 1949. No leading Democrats stood up to McCarthy and his tactics until the Army-Navy hearings in 1954 when the Senate voted to censure him.
As far as media coverage is concerned, few in the press have called upon Bush to explain his tactics. Instead, they broadcast his statements about terrorism without much critical thought. There have been exceptions: Bill Maher has done a masterful job of challenging President Bush on his show Real Time; Jon Stewart has parodied the news effectively on The Daily Show; and liberal bloggers have put the Bush rhetoric into perspective.
We could have used weblogs back in the 1950s. As it were, one of the few in the media to openly challenge McCarthy was Edward Murrow of CBS News. Murrow had a weekly television show and he, producer Fred Friendly and CBS owner William Paley decided to analyze speeches of McCarthy and decry his bullying of alleged communists.
Bush and McCarthy are and were opportunists. Both inherited a political climate in which the public genuinely feared a group of people they were told threatened them. Both exploited this fear masterfully to get the political results they wanted, Bush his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and his re-election and McCarthy his re-election to the United States Senate and attention as one of the most controversial Senators in our nation’s history.
The public should resist this kind of demagoguery. There are plenty of valid reasons to question United States policy on terrorism without being identified as one. Above all else, in difficult times when we need more national unity, we should reject the tactics of those who divide us.