I'm more concerned re. Ty's admission he worked for the National Lawyer's Guild. Who promoted Slothrop? I think the people of Lawtalkers deserve to know who made this man. with admitted ties to communist front groups, a moderator?

No, keep it up. Seriously. I'm not as up to date on McCarthy stuff, and don't have the time to do research to rebut Spanky's counter-intuitive assertion that no, actually, now that I think about it, McCarthy probably was an American hero.

You should read the Nizer book and the Coulter book. In that order. They're not that long, and they're both entertaining, in a weird sort of way, and there is really no contradiction between them. Just coverage of different facets, all of which you should have if you want to know about this.

I may well do that. Soon as I can figure out which of Amazon, the local Border's, or the local library I'm most comfortable having the knowledge that I would possess anything written by Coulter.

Half-Priced Books. Pay cash.

Remember, that if you go to the library, the G will KNOW what you are reading.

When we start denouncing the people who have supported Kerry, and you face losing your job, home, and iPods, you'll thank me as you whip out your Coulter book and prove you're clean.

Come the Revolution . . .

I'd suggest that William F. Buckley's "McCarthy and His Enemies" is probably a more intellectually honest defense of Tail-Gunner Joe that Ann Coulter's book, but whatever.

Nizer's book is more about what a wonderful trial lawyer he was than about McCarthyism per se. The Faulk case is simply one of several cases Nizer talks about, and the Faulk case was really about what might be called "private sector" McCarthyism. The only connection to McCarthy himself is that Roy Cohn took over as the lawyer for AWARE (a group that screened actors on behalf of producers and sponsors for any political taint) in the middle of the case.

I understand that there are some more recent books out on McCarthy that are good, and which take into account the Venona materials. I can't think of any particular title now, but I think that the Atlantic Monthly (?) may have mentioned some of them when they reviewed Coulter's book.

Oops. Then I'm thinking of another book entirely.

Did anyone read this post of mine? I am at a loss here. Ann Coulter made a claim that McCarthy didn't falsly accuse anyone and no one has been able to contradict that. That blows me away.

Fisher was brought up but it turns out that all McCarthy did was point out that he was a member of the Lawyers Guild and that the Lawyers Guild was labelled the legal arm of the communist party by the Attorney General. He didn't just donate to the group but was a member for a long time. He just stated facts didn't he? McCarthy didn't have him jailed or anything, he just stated the facts.

If McCarthy stated facts that what the hell did he do wrong?

If all McCarthy did was investigate and bring facts to light what the hell did he do wrong?

I got no answer to this. Why not? And how is the above example any different than what happened to the communists during the 1950s.

2. I'm sure Ty will have a blog cite to argue with you though.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

As I stated before, if someone said that they had made a mistake, and didn't support the communist party then it would be wrong if they got fired. Do you have an actual example of this?

But it seems to me the only people that got nailed were people that refused to critisize the communist party. Here is a party that is being financed by the Soviet Union and is trying to overthrow the US government.

Now if people were still getting fired and other bad things were happening to them because they unknowingly donated to a group they did not know was communist and pointed out it was a mistake. That would suck. But so far no one has shown me this has happened.

Jesus Christ
 

The basic problem was that, as Hank said, some (not all, not even most, but some) of the people snagged were truly the clueless, "oh look at me, it's fashionable to be communist" types - the shallow ones who were able to look beyond the millions of deaths and think (wrong word, probably) of that system as being trendy and cute and avant-garde. Which is why so many Hollywood types went for it, I suppose.

McCarthy rightly took no pity on the knowledgable participants, but he also took none on the idiots. He purposefully built a crescendo of frantic public fear that was unjustified in its immediacy, and used that fear effectively enough so that the simple "he's a member of the Guild" said much more to the public - "he's a pedophile!" would have been a gentler accusation.

He also did a lot of his investigating work right there, in the public room, and there was a lot of collateral damage that came out in the process that had nothing to do with what he was looking for. He may have been correct in picking his targets, but he was an asshole.