Is Bill Clinton Like Joe McCarthy? Obama Advisor Thinks So.

"Merrill 'Tony' McPeak said he was astonished and disappointed by recent comments Bill Clinton made while speculating about a general election between Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican John McCain. Standing next to Obama on stage at a campaign stop in southern Oregon, the retired Air Force chief of staff repeated Bill Clinton's comments aloud to a silent audience...McPeak also had made off-the-cuff remarks to reporters Friday in comparing the former president's comments with the actions of Joseph McCarthy, the 1950s communist-hunting senator. 'I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it,' McPeak said. [Howard] Wolfson [Hillary campaign spokesman] called that comparison outrageous and called for a retraction. 'I think most Democrats were shocked to learn that a two-term Democratic president was compared to Joseph McCarthy,' he said."

Merrill 'Tony' McPeak is a former chief of staff of the Air Force and currently a co-chair of Obama’s presidential campaign. Recently the General used a slur that is usually reserved for conservatives on none other than Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton had said, “I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country.” McPeak took this as an assault on Barack Obama’s patriotism, and perhaps justifiably so, and went on to call Bill Clinton one of the dirtiest words in politics. He said that it “sounds more like McCarthy. I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I’ve had enough of it.” Perhaps the reason that McPeak thinks that McCarthy was out looking for “good Americans” to accuse is precisely because he was in college. The liberal intellectual elite and the media were not fond of McCarthy, just as they are not fond of George W. Bush today. McPeak and his college professors may have been opponents of Joe McCarthy, but that is not to say that the Republican Senator had no supporters. The late William F. Buckley Jr. was a supporter of Joe McCarthy. Robert Kennedy worked for McCarthy and John F. Kennedy called him “a great American patriot.” In January 1954 he had a 50 percent approval rating, with only 29 percent disapproving. But who his friends and who his enemies were is less important than whether the McCarthy name should still be a pejorative over sixty years after his death.

Liberals have used this slur for far too long now. Without any knowledge of history they draw analogies between the 1950’s Senator and modern day political foes as if the man’s name were synonymous with fascist. But now they have turned fire against their own, and in a political tiff, Bill Clinton of all people has been compared to Joe McCarthy. The questions this raises in my mind are twofold. Is McCarthy’s name still worthy of being used as an insult by liberals against their opponents? And is there really any valid or worthy comparison between Slick Willie and Tail-Gunner Joe?

Before I attempt to humbly answer those questions allow me to point out that this label of McCarthyism is often still used today just as it was when McCarthy was alive. In the past few weeks alone, aside from McPeak, liberals have used this insult in astounding ways. On March 3rd Evan Thomas published an article for Newsweek in which he wrote that a recent Princeton University gossip website that included postings such as “Most Overrated Princeton Student” and “Sluttiest Girl” was “modern-day McCarthyism.” He spent multiple paragraphs ranting about the evil of Joseph McCarthy and the accusations against those “who were usually innocent.” Thomas probably went so far as to open up his high school textbook when writing this article. The liberal Andrew Sullivan wrote that an op-ed which stated that Obama’s association with his radical preacher “raises legitimate questions about Mr. Obama's fundamental beliefs about his country” was “guilt by association - especially uttered in the dark, McCarthyite tones” that apparently “says more about the paranoia of the writer than the patriotism of his subject.” Barack himself used the phrase “guilt by association” in reference to the Jeremiah Wright controversy. When a ridiculous college website and a legitimate op-ed are called McCarthyite it should certainly give you a hint of just exactly how little meaning that word actually has when thrown around by those on the Left.

One of my favorite recent references to McCarthy comes from Cindy Pearlman who wrote on March 23, 2008, as appeared on the Chicago Sun Times website, that “Lucille Ball faced her own red scare in 1953, when she was subpoenaed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee because she had registered to vote in the Communist party primary election in 1936.” Ms. Pearlman has very little understanding of the legislative branch of the federal government. Senator Joseph McCarthy, as a Senator, could not subpoena anyone to a House committee. This nuance is lost on most people, not just journalists.

So now let me answer the first question I posed. Is McCarthy’s name still worthy of being used as an insult by liberals against their opponents? Not at all. McCarthy was a Senator, Cindy, and he did not hunt Hollywood Reds but rather brought up the issue of communists, at the birth of the cold war, working for the United States government. Keeping communists out of government so that Chairman Stalin’s Intelligence services could not receive secret information, or so that U.S. interests would not be sabotaged, was logical. It was not an issue of undertones or overtones. It was an issue of American security. The continuous use of McCarthy’s name as some form of childish insult is ridiculous in light of all the new information about what was in actuality a large network of communists working for the government before McCarthy rose to power and fame in the Senate. Simply look up the Venona Decrypts, secret Army intelligence decryptions that were released in the 1990’s, and you’ll be amazed at the information you find about the extent of communist infiltration in our government. And you do not need to be Ann Coulter to believe this. George Mason University History Professor Arthur Herman writes that the “standard claim that McCarthy had never exposed a real Communist in the government” is “demonstrably false.” Did McCarthy sometimes use excesses in either rhetoric or tactics? Perhaps. But was their a real threat of communist subversives within the government that McCarthy was working to root out? Certainly. So enough with the nonsensical McCarthyism labels.

Though it is interesting to point out that a Democrat, let alone a former Democrat President, is being compared to Joe McCarthy. Are they anything alike? I don’t think so. Bill Clinton has been accused of being a draft dodger when it came to Vietnam, and it is beyond doubt that with the help of influential friends he managed to get into the Arkansas ROTC just 11 days before his induction. Meanwhile, McCarthy commissioned into the U.S. Marines Corps even though as a sitting judge he was exempt from military service. He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville and also as a base legal officer at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California. Bill Clinton is a proven liar. Joe McCarthy is being proven to be more and more right as time goes on. The Clintons have a reputations of moving with the wind, of following the polls. Joe McCarthy was known for never backing down from his convictions and always ready to fight for what he believed was a noble cause.

So in the end, I’d say that calling Bill Clinton a McCarthyite is indeed uncalled for. The usage of that phrase at all should be dropped as an insult in political tiffs. It is the refuge of a fool to rely on a one word phrase without actually knowing the context and history. At the very least, it is time that people raise their voices in objection when they hear the phrase McCarthyite being used so liberally, pun intended.

"I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it."

The archives of the Soviet Union proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Joseph McCarthy never once called any "good Americans" traitors.

“I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country.”

You know what? This is a great quote. I don't care who said it.

Best I could come up with was that McPeak was a junior officer on his way up at the time General Edwin Walker was driven out of the service by the evil Robert McNamara (presumably for passing out John Birch Society tracts to the troops).

No doubt that impressed McPeak with the idea that if he wanted to get promoted he'd best go along with the Leftwingtards.

Guess it must have begun to dominate his whole life ~ otherwise he wouldn't be trying to push Obama off on us. Or possibly he "went over" in the Nam.

Also, Joe McCarthy served until May 1957, and, in fact General McPeak was in college at that time. More particularly he became a member of Sigma Chi, the ultimate in frat boy lifestyle participants ~ made me wanna’ puke, you betcha’, no wonder this McPeak guy hates his fellow Americans so much.

"..No doubt that impressed McPeak with the idea that if he wanted to get promoted he'd best go along with the Leftwingtards..."

Nobody who ends up on the Obama campaign could have believed differently.

[snip]Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee because she had registered to vote in the Communist party primary election in 1936.

Actually, that was the Dies committee, from back in the day when Democrats (Dies was one) still worried about communism. A number of those fingered by Dies were later (re-)named by Tail-gunner Joe. Incredibly, some of them were still serving in government or had even been rehired.

Ms. Pearlman has very little understanding of the legislative branch of the federal government

Therefore she must be an alum of an Ivy League post graduate journalism school. The distinction between the Dies (HUAC) comittee and McCarthy's committee is not, of course, a nuance. Those really interested in the history of Joe McCarthy should look here.

It's excellent.

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