In a style made famous by Glen Beck, and featuring generous heaps of adjectives designed to generate a specific emotional response, Taplin presents his readers with a challenge: quick, what's the scariest part of today's witch-hunt?

A: Glenn Beck is a Joe McCarthy on television.

That's what Glen Beck would say if he was witch-hunting Glen Beck.

Meanwhile, what TPM does on its front page multiple times a day has no resemblance to an obsession, a witch-hunt or even a New York Post (hint: Murdoch, Rupert - owner).

No, no, no... it's Glen Beck who does witch-hunting. What Taplin and TPM do is called Serious Journalism and political reporting.

Jon, I do not like Glen Beck. I think that he and similarly supported tools of the neocon-men corporatists are trying to ruin our republic. But I don't really see a direct analogy to what McCarthy did. Not yet, anyway.

The current set of tea-bagging townhall terrorists, and their media mouthpieces, seem focused directly on destroying the Obama administration, per se. It may be part of a larger plan, but it seems to me very specific to the current administration. So to me it feels more like the Clinton years revisited. Only much nastier.

There is a populist element to it, and that is new (compared to the Clinton Wars). But the goal is the same -- play defense and ruin the current Democratic champion, and as much as possible tar the rest of the Democratic party as a failure, so that the Republicans will get another 8- or 12-year chance to further dismantle the social safety net and loot the Treasury.

I wasn't alive for the McCarthy era. I understand it was a terrible time. But the targets of that witch hunt were journalists and individuals in the entertainment biz -- "famous" people, who were not really part of the mainstream political landscape. To me, McCarthyism seems more analagous to gay-bashing and the fear mongering over immigration today.

Still very nasty. And still in the service of a political agenda that I totally disagree with. But not quite a witch hunt like the McCarthy era yet.

-- ARG

I am so confused. Beck makes charges. Then the administration leaves these guys to twist in the wind. Before I get so very upset about Beck, I need to see someone in this administration oppose him, attack him, denigrate him, go after him. Until then, this wringing of hands just magnifies the decision that Obama, Emanuel and the gang have made to strike an impotent pose.

ARG wrote: "I wasn't alive for the McCarthy era. I understand it was a terrible time. But the targets of that witch hunt were journalists and individuals in the entertainment biz -- "famous" people, who were not really part of the mainstream political landscape. To me, McCarthyism seems more analagous to gay-bashing and the fear mongering over immigration today."

I'm sorry, but you need to learn more about McCarthy and his era if you think the witch hunt was just about journalists and entertainers. (The inquisition into Hollywood was actually carried out by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, allies of McCarthy.) Far more important, McCarthy and his minions systematically witch-hunted the Foreign Service and other government agencies, ruining the lives of hundreds of public servants, driving some as far as suicide. In doing so, he gave special attention to specialists in Asia, using the "Who lost China?" question to purge the State Department of any independent thinkers on that critical area. One result was that there were no real Asia experts left on board to tell Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson they were making terrible mistakes in Viet Nam. A national tragedy resulted, including 55,000+ American dead and over a million Vietnamese dead, and part of the blame can be laid on Joe McCarthy's witch-hunting.

Peace,
Paul

Just a point of history: Edward Murrow was actually rather late to the game in attacking McCarthy. Jack Shafer at Slate wrote a nice piece about the wrongheadedness of valorizing Murrow too much when Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" was released. Here's an excerpt:

----
The McCarthy program "came very late in the day," said one of Murrow's brightest "boys," Eric Sevareid, in a January 1978 broadcast. "The youngsters read back and they think only one person in broadcasting and the press stood up to McCarthy," Sevareid said, "and this has made a lot of people feel very upset, including me, because that program came awfully late." Sevareid named Elmer Davis and Martin Agronsky as two broadcasters who had taken on McCarthy long before Murrow.

But don't take Sevareid's word for it, either. Listen to Murrow. Jack Gould, the New York Times television columnist whose Murrow praise is read aloud in the movie, took lunch with Murrow shortly after the McCarthy program. Murrow confessed his tardiness in taking on McCarthy, according to an interview Gould gave to Edwin R. Bayley for his 1981 book, Joe McCarthy and the Press. "My God," he recalls Murrow saying. "I didn't do anything. [Times columnist] Scotty Reston and lot of guys have been writing like this, saying the same things, for months, for years. We're bringing up the rear."
----

Not to diminish the necessity for folks to fight back against clowns like Beck, but it's important to keep the historical record clear. Valorizing one lone journalist when he was actually kind of slow to do anything doesn't help.

Glenn Beck and his ilk make an amateur of Joe McCarthy. They understand the level of hatred throughout The United States of America for this black man who has reached the pinnacle. Obama's accomplishments fly in the face of those who by accident of birth wear white skin and by virtue of skin color, hold fiercely to a sense of entitlement and superiority over all others. Their hatred is intensified because the Presidents success can't be blamed on affirmative action. He was elected convincingly over a white, conservative, military hero magnifying the agonizing frustration of the "white is right" crowd to desperate proportions.

In office for less than nine months, this President's appearances attract protestors with semi auto rifles in hand and Glocks strapped to their legs. Of course many of these cowards are compensating for anatomical inadequacies, else why bring a weapon into a crowd with unarmed women and children present. But the numerous and highly visible "protestors" with signs depicting the President as Hitler, calling out for his death and injury to his family are new to the American landscape. When the same picture is displayed concurrently in disparate locations around our country, there is clearly sinister direction from somewhere.

If Glenn Beck is not part of the source then he is exploiting hatred and the sentiment of violent tyranny for cash with potential ramifications more dangerous and dispicable than that wrought by McCarthy.

I had to mention that there actually was a media giant that supported McCarthy. McCarthy was well connected with right wing media of the time and none were stronger than the ones who worked for William Randolph Hearst...the original Rupert Murdoch. Hearst's son, Bill Jr., was also an avid supporter of the HUAC era and Hearst himself, while old and frail by the early 1950's was a stauch anti-communist that did his best to flame the witchhunt and had been one of the first to start it when he became enraged by Roosevelt's New Deal...So really, Murdoch and his band of merrymen going after Obama are all just following in the footsteps of Hearst...the blueprint is all laid out for them to follow with Hearst's constant barrage of attacks on Roosevelt, but with a television audience and an entertainment factor that Hearst would have envied. It is so much more powerful to have Beck weeping into the camera rather than just depend on written columns and radio broadcasts.

And though it has probably been said multiple times, I cannot help but picture Glenn Beck as the Howard Beal character from Network sitting in Rupert Murdoch's office getting schooled on the "primal forces of nature"...if it wasn't so sad, it would be astonishingly funny and absurd...These media giants have too much power and it is past time that we do something about it.

Wow, one taco short of a conspiracy combination plate. No wonder you like Beck.

I found yesterday's event a real eye popper. It is undeniably clear that this is the new face of Racism in America. But now it is openly corporate funded. Fascism is indeed here, and Glenn Beck is the new right great white messiah.

Thanks you for sharing. This information is very useful.
Best regards, Katya, CEO of facebook, iscsi initiator vista