Chicago Sun-Times: HCUA Was 'Helmed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy'
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) isn't alone in having trouble understanding how the government is organized. In a Sunday article posted on the Chicago Sun-Times's Web site, staff reporter Mary Houlihan credits the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) with running the House Committee on Un-American Activities. That would have been quite an accomplishment, given the fact McCarthy never served in the House of Representatives.
Houlihan writes of photographer Milton Rogovin, who died last month. After military service during World War II, Rogovin "organized a chapter of the optometrists’ union and served as librarian for the Communist Party of Buffalo."
Then the inevitable happened. In October 1957, Rogovin was caught in the net cast by the House Un-American Activities Committee helmed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It was the waning days of the Communist witch hunt, and the experience would change Rogovin’s life.
If October, 1957 indeed represented the waning days of the Communist witch hunt, the situation was even worse for Joe McCarthy. He had died the previous May.
You'd think McCarthy's title of Senator might serve as a clue that he didn't chair a House Committee. Partially due to the mainstream media's eagerness to attach his name or “ism” to as many unsavory things as possible, misinformation abounds. And yet they still complain that Joe didn't get his facts right.
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Comments
It's not bias
Submitted by chazski on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 1:40am.
It's not liberal bias, it's liberal obsession, facilitated by bone-deep liberal ignorance.
Influenced is a more appropriate descrption
Submitted by goldwaterfan on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 4:06am.
McCarthy obviously didn't helm the committee , but his paranoia led to its establishment. That doesn't change the fact that McCarthy was an anti-American slimeball.
Amanda Carrington
Unlike to pro-Stalin
Submitted by Jack Bauer on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 6:00am.
Unlike to pro-Stalin Rogovin.
Actually the DEMOCRAT run HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES was formed before SENATOR McCarthy came to public prominence.
That would be in 1938, by the way. 19 years prior. And it was HELMED by Democrat Martin Dies Jr, toi investigate NAZI and COMMUNIST infiltration of the United States..
Do get your facts right, please.
So you could say that it was the DEMOCRAT RUN HUAC which influenced McCarthy.
The problem wIth liberals is that they are mis-educated by -- MORE LIBERALS.
All of the above Mr Obama? --- How about ALL OF THE BELOW, instead.
Spot on, Jack
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 11:03am.
HUAC pre-dates McCarthy. But it remains an embarassment to Dems -- as does FDR's notorious Executive Order 9066 -- so the Left tends to merge HUAC with the McCarthy legacy and condemn the whole thing as though McCarthy were some sort of ringleader.
I've found similar misunderstandings regarding the infamous Hollywood Ten, which also pre-dates McCarthy. Many I've spoken with are under the false impression that it was the Federal government who blacklisted the Ten, denying them their filmmaking livelihoods. But of course, it was the Hollywood studio bosses themselves who blacklisted them, and at least a few on the list like Dalton Trumbo continued to work under pseudonyms (I believe Trumbo's first true film credit after blacklisting was on Spartacus at the insistence of Kirk Douglas).
HUAC was investigating the influence and infiltration of the Moscow-financed American Communist Party in the film industry, of which there was considerable evidence, despite contemporary Hollywood's attempts to underplay or even deny it. Some, like Stalin-apologist Lillian Hellman, were blatantly pro-Communist.
During McCarthys' Senatorial Hearings
Submitted by richb313 on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 7:40am.
During McCarthys' Senatorial Hearings there were also hearings being held in the House. The Senate confined thier hearings to rooting out communists from American Government. It was the House that cast a much broader net. As stated before these Hearings on UnAmerican Activities had actually started before WWII. When McCarthy was running the hearings in the Senate it was Nixon and a few others who ran it in the House. All the Hollywood types testified in the House hearings.
History has been completely distorted by the Media for whatever reasons they had and still have. I was just a child during those times but I still remeber the times.
Amanda, it must hurt to be so wrong
Submitted by hobie on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 9:58am.
Your first statement has so much wrong; I am impressed that you could pack so much BS into 13 words.
Other posters here have blown your statement about McCarthy establishing the HCUA. Apparently a democrat established it. How does that feel?
What no one else has pointed out is that it is not paranoia to call a Communist a Communist. The main subject of the article is a man who professes to being a Communist. Duh.
An optometrist Communist? How many 'oppressed optometrists' are ready to assume control of the means of production in the US?
Communism is un-American. There is your slimeball. I kind of think you have the same tendencies seeing as though you attack the man who accurately labels people as what they are.
Your kind of deception does not withstand the light of day.
Sorry Goldwater fan.....
Submitted by adamsmith on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 10:53am.
Sorry Goldwaterfan( I'm a Goldwater conservative by the way), but McCarthy was right. There was and continues to be a communist witchhunt against HIM!!!!! He only scratched the surface. With all the Communists,Progressives and general lefty statists, we need twenty McCarthys today. First on my list would be Obamalinsky.....
"McCarthy was an anti-American slimeball"
Submitted by Mike Bates on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 12:33pm.
Barry Goldwater:
"History will judge Joe McCarthy; and history will, I believe, be kind and generous in its judgment."
Provide the source
Submitted by goldwaterfan on Tue, 02/15/2011 - 6:44am.
Goldwater hated McCarthy, and so did IKE. Give me some sources for your pro-McCarthy love.
Amanda Carrington
First, goldwaterfan,---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 02/16/2011 - 12:54am.
show your souces to back up your contention that McCarthy "influenced" the formation of the House Un-American Committee.Joe McCarthy's time machine
Submitted by Mark LaRochelle on Tue, 02/15/2011 - 1:42pm.
Ms. Carrington:
It's hard to see how McCarthy could have influenced the establishment of HUAC, as it was established as a permanent committee in 1945 (the year before McCarthy was elected to Congress). If anyone should get the credit for influencing the establishment of HUAC, it would be Congressman Samuel Dickstein (D-NY), who introduced the resolution calling for the establishment of a special committee to investigate "un-American activities" in 1934. Under the pretext of investigating alleged fascists and Nazis, Dickstein used the committee to launch witch hunts in against anti-Stalinist American businessmen, Soviet emigres and Trotskyites. The committee's establishment was due not to his paranoia, but his treachery: Dickstein was a Soviet agent, code-named "Crook."
Hilarious. That well known
Submitted by Jack Bauer on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 5:49am.
Hilarious. That well known oppressed exploited group of workers -- the opthalmists -- needed a union formed by a guy who just happened to be a "librarian" for the Soviet loving commies.
This AFTER Stalin's MASS MURDERS were public knowledge -- despite the best efforts of the Nwe Yorks Times...
There are none so blind as those who will not see Mr Rogovin.
All of the above Mr Obama? --- How about ALL OF THE BELOW, instead.
...
Submitted by Jack Bauer on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 5:50am.
...
All of the above Mr Obama? --- How about ALL OF THE BELOW, instead.
McCarthy---
Submitted by matthewdean on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 6:01am.
most definitely had his shortcomings, but he was nowhere near being the anti-American slimeball that Obama has turned out to be.
MD
Like
Submitted by misterbee241 on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 11:59am.
If your post had a "like" button I'd click it.
Seems McCarthy was more right
Submitted by misterbee241 on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 11:58am.
Seems McCarthy was more right than he was wrong, and the commie witch hunt wasnt a witch hunt after all.
And why are liberals so afraid of an anti-communist like Sen McCarthy? Hmmmmm?
It's a
Submitted by HockeyKid on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 12:05pm.
It's a Frankenstein<->Fire kind of thing.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
Funny that the democraps took
Submitted by eaglewingz08 on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 12:21pm.
Funny that the democraps took over the Senate in 1954 so McCarthy was relegated to minority status from then on to his death in MAY 1957. So unless McCarthy was both given a special role in the Democrap House of Representatives to helm their HCUA Committee, and he did that helming from the afterlife, this article is a complete crock. You'd think with all those fact checkers in the lamestream media, they might have checked McCarthy's date of death and his elected office and committee assignments. But why let the facts get in the way of more liberal smearing of McCarthy?
Timeless Reaganism
Submitted by stratman on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 4:41pm.
Ronald Reagan succinctly describes the Liberal condition.