By Brian Carnell

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

"Accuracy" In Media becomes the latest conservative nut cases to claim that the post-Cold War revelations about Soviet intelligence vindicated Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

AIM's report on the matter is an excellent example of, well, a rather McCarthy-ite strategy. According to AIM (original emphasis),

The release of transcripts of closed-door hearings conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy gave the media another opportunity to charge that the Wisconsin Senator made reckless charges about communists that destroyed the lives of innocent people. But many of the stories about the hearings and McCarthy were far more reckless, inaccurate and misleading than anything he ever said or did.

The media have had 50 years to get the story straight but still canÂ’t present the basic facts to the American people about the communist threat that McCarthy tried to expose-and which still exists today in a different but equally deadly form.

Not that AIM is too careful about the facts itself. The main example it gives is Aaron Copland who testified that he was not a Communist but was, in fact, affiliate with quite a few Communist organizations and front groups. Copland maintained he didn't realize some of the groups were Communist fronts and ended his affiliation with them upon learning this.

AIM writes that,

An AP story of May 10, 2003, said that FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the FBI "wanted to prosecute Copland for perjury and fraud for denying he was a Communist." No such prosecution ever took place.

Apparently it would have been asking too much of AIM to note that the AP in fact reports that although some in the FBI wanted to prosecute Copland, the Assistant Attorney General ultimately concluded there was "insufficient evidence to warrant prosecution."

Or consider this odd attack against McCarthy's opponents in the media,

Joel Brinkley in the New York Times said McCarthy did not hesitate “to destroy reputations and lives.” In fact, some in the media wanted to destroy McCarthy. The Washington Post was preparing to publish major allegations of illegal conduct against McCarthy until it learned at the last minute that its source was a con man.

Hmmm...the Washington Post had a sensational story about McCarthy but didn't run with it when it turned out to be false. Yeah, that damn liberal media strikes again. They probably should have just come out and said they had a list of 50 or 60 or maybe 70 crimes that McCarthy had committed and they would release the list Real Soon(TM).

Ironically, as Dorothy Rabinowitz pointed out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed about Ann Coulter's pro-McCarthy, McCarthy's admirers never want to mention his defense of SS officers,

Ms. Coulter's work includes an admiring if brief biography of McCarthy's political career. One that for some reason excludes the senator's remarkable efforts on behalf of the members of the SS battle group who executed 86 American POWs in the Ardennes campaign in December 1944; otherwise known as the Malmedy Massacre. In his impassioned efforts on behalf of the accused--one never to be repeated in his investigative career--the senator charged that the U.S. Army had cruelly mistreated the former SS men.

When groups like the ACLU complain make similar complaints about prisoners in Guantanamo they are accused of being part of the "litigous PC crowd."

Sources:

Be tolerant - Not Stupid. Marianne M. Jennings, Accuracy In Media, February 2002.

FBI investigated composer Copland for communist ties. Associated Press, May 11, 2003.

McCarthy was right. Accuracy in Media, July 2003.

A Conspiracy So Vast. Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2003.

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