Joseph McCarthy

Fifty years from now, everyone will agree that Karl Rove committed treason by revealing the identity of CIA "spy" Valerie Plame, tea partiers shouted the N-word at a black congressman and Duke lacrosse players gang-raped a stripper. Liberals tell whopping lies, and most conservatives can't be bothered to learn history.

In the last few days, we've heard both George Will and Charles Krauthammer, otherwise intelligent people, repeating bogus Democratic talking points about how Joe McCarthy allegedly smeared innocents with false allegations.

I've not been much of a fan of Time magazine for years, though I am again, if only briefly.

Fresh off Rachel Maddow's ludicrous claim that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was "not all that well known" until he was killed by the US military in 2006 and allegedly elevated in death beyond what he was in life, Time magazine published a special issue titled "The End of bin Laden."

The cover of the magazine, which can be seen here, shows an illustration of bin Laden crossed out with a prominent red "X" -- as in, buh bye.

Turns out this is only the fourth time in Time's history that the magazine has gone with the "X" cover. Prior to bin Laden's rude awakening by Navy SEALs, Time did this for only three other globally reviled figures: Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein -- and Zarqawi. (video after page break)

Rachel Maddow has engaged in a strange--sinister?--irony.  On her MSNBC show last night, one moment Maddow was condemning the late Senator Joe McCarthy for encouraging people to "turn in their friends" in the entertainment industry. The next moment, Maddow was urging her viewers to . . . turn in someone in the entertainment industry--the animator of Mike Huckabee's history series for kids.

Maddow devoted a sarcastic segment to mocking Huckabee's series of DVDs on American history.  Along the way she accused Huckabee of engaging in revisionist history. Her example was the way a Huckabee DVD described Ronald Reagan's testimony as a friendly witness at a McCarthy hearing, in his role as president of the Screen Actors Guild, as Reagan having "worked against Communism in Hollywood."

Maddow then said this: "We asked [Huckabee's production company] today who had done the animation on these DVDs.  They would not tell us.  If you know who brought this amazing animated sauce to life, please get in touch with us.  We would like to know."

View video after the jump.

Thursday’s CBS Early Show looked back at 1954 as part of its ‘Time Machine’ series, with co-host Harry Smith praising former CBS anchor Edward R. Murrow for taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy: “McCarthy was on a kind of a witch hunt. Ed Murrow boldly recognized that and took him on....It was very gutsy and very risky on Murrow’s part....McCarthy was a bully. Ed Murrow said ‘I’m not going to stand for it.’”

Smith made the comments during a pre-taped video montage in which he and the other Early Show co-hosts reminisced about the time period. The montage concluded with co-host Maggie Rodriguez, who was off on Thursday, observing: “I think 1954 was an important year in American history because people stood up for what was right, whether it was desegregation or speaking out against a Senator who was targeting people as communists, it was a year of fighting for the truth.”

As the Media Research Center’s recently released special report Better Off Red demonstrates, Smith wasn’t exactly a staunch Cold Warrior. As the Soviet Union began to fall apart in 1990, Smith, then co-host of CBS’s This Morning, lamented: “Yes, somehow, Soviet citizens are freer these days — freer to kill one another, freer to hate Jews....Doing away with totalitarianism and adding a dash of democracy seems an unlikely cure for all that ails the Soviet system.”    

On Saturday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Kimberly Dozier filed a report profiling moderate Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both from Maine, in light of their vote in favor of President Obama's economic plan, and relayed their criticisms that other Republicans should show more willingness to "compromise." Dozier also likened Collins to another former Republican Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, who is known for being "the first Senator to stand up to McCarthyism."

Dozier began her report: "President Obama owes his stimulus package to three Senators from the losing side. Three renegade Republicans tipped the balance: Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania and two women Senators from the sparsely populated state of Maine – Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins."

My NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard, in the course of detailing how the New York Times devoted four items and over 6,000 words today to attacking Sarah Palin, cited Frank Rich's column and its malicious message.  Rich's piece is such a treasure trove for chroniclers of Palin Derangement Syndrome that I'd like to devote a bit more time to deconstructing it. 

For sheer paranoid fantasy, it will be hard to outdo the scenario Rich sketches. In having mentioned Harry Truman in her convention speech, Rich sees nothing less than a "creepy" clue to what Palin has in mind. Truman, you see [roll the menacing music] . . . ascended to the presidency due to the death of the president whom he served as VP.   Rich imagines  a "Palin presidency" that is nothing less than a far-right, McCarthyite coup. 

Annotated excerpts from Rich's The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket [emphasis added]: