Me and McCarthy, We're Like This!

Oddly enough... Thirty-one years to the day before I was born, Joseph McCarthy made his famous speech to the Republican Women's Club, in which he claimed that some odd number of known Communists were working in the State Department. Nobody knows exactly how many people he said that first time - the press attention was almost non-existent. Of course, press attention would grow.

People in my father's line of work love to claim credit for bringing down McCarthy, and no doubt about it Edward R. Murrow's exhibition on McCarthy had a major role. More importantly, however, was McCarthy's self-destructive attack on the US Army shortly thereafter - in the middle of the Cold War, no less. Because if you were going to attack an institution, you'd naturally attack the US Army. Because they're not powerful or have any powerful allies like, say, the President.

Anyway. My birthday, McCarthy's drunken hysteria, it's the same day. Whee!

(By the way, what kind of pussy calls out the Commies in front of the Republican Women's Club?)