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.
