May 24, 2006
Joe McCarthy was right!
I'm not usually friendly to revisionist history, but in all honesty I have to confess that the right-wing attempts to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy have a solid factual basis. Brad DeLong quotes from one of McCarthy's most famous speeches:
How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this Government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy, a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.
Admittedly, if we think of this as a description of the situation in McCarthy's own time, outlining a "conspiracy of infamy" led by George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson, with Harry Truman as their puppet and dupe, it's not only absurdly wrong but disgustingly and maliciously wrong. After all, those three men, more than any others, devised and put in place the strategy that defeated Stalin's drive for world empire and eventually produced the Soviet collapse for which the Reaganoids and neocons, like roosters boasting that they made the sun rise, loudly claim credit.
But if instead we think of McCarthy's rant as a prediction of our current predicament, with Cheney as Marshall, Rumsfeld as Acheson, and Bush as Truman, it seems instead eerily prescient. Evaluated as a statesman, or as a human being, McCarthy comes up short. But he shines with a pure and steady light if we consider him as a prophet.
Sorry, Mark, but that's just the downright weirdest post I've ever seen (though the stuff about Marshall and Acheson winning the Cold War is insightful).
Posted by: Nothanks at May 24, 2006 12:17 PMWith McCarthy (and therefore his most current *Treason*-ous fanatic, Ann Coulter) being right, so is a stopped wind-up clock twice a day. An out-of-control car, swerving left and right, is also right on at least once in the series of arcs. McCarthy himself was also considered to be one of those who would deliver the country to peril. This does not make him self-deprecating, only self-depreciating.
Posted by: Alamaine, IVe at May 24, 2006 12:58 PMFits well with the theory advanced by Powell's former chief of staff, that foreign policy has been hijacked by a Cabal led by Cheney
The junior Senator from Wisconsin was 50 years ahead of his time? That's funny. But of course, the real game was then as it is now - to abuse the national security issue in order to bash Democrats. No - Karl Rove is today's Joe McCarthy.
Posted by: pgl at May 24, 2006 02:29 PMOf course this fits with Gore Vidal's claim that the entire cold war was unnecessary and was the product far more of Harry Truman and American paranoia than Josef Stalin. I expect, though, that Marshall would not consider an over-militarized world, vastly more fusion weapons than any war realistically needs, and a military-industrial-complex controlled United States to be a national disaster the way Gore Vidal does.
Posted by: Maynard Handley at May 24, 2006 02:56 PMAnd where is our Edward R. Murrow? What so-called journalist from any network TV news department will stand up on his/her hind legs and comfront these powers, this cabal? That's why Katie Couric is the new anchor, not Helen Thomas...
Posted by: PixelOnBush at May 24, 2006 03:13 PMExactly what "disaster" is looming under Bush? Isn't it too early to call Iraq a disaster?
Posted by: fightforjustice at May 24, 2006 03:19 PMShort answer on Iraq: no.
Don't you think Stalin was the one who laid the groundwork to defeat the Soviet drive for "world empire," or does the phrase "Socialism in one country" no longer ring a bell with anyone?
I'm not saying that theory is right, but I do think your/De Long's history of the Truman administration leaves out a number of plausible alternative analyses.
Posted by: wcw at May 24, 2006 05:01 PMUmm, am I the only person reading this post who understands that Mark is being humorous and slightly satirical, poking fun at both McCarthy and his right-wing apologists?
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