McCarthyism born 71 years ago today

On February 9, 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, a totally unfit public servant, struck gold with a speech before West Virginia Republicans. He charged that 205 commies were infesting the State Department. His fellow Republicans knew he was once again playing the fool, lying viciously to get attention and further his floundering career.

But McCarthy had struck gold with the press and the public, vaulting him atop the GOP effort to retake the White House and Congress. Famed political cartoonist Herblock pictured Joe straddling vats of tar, coining the phrase ‘McCarthyism’ to describe the slash and burn political tactics forever associated with McCarthy.

Seventy-one years on McCarthyism survives with smears of communism, socialism, Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters hurled at those seeking economic, racial and political justice by those channeling the sad, anti Democratic legacy of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy