A McCarthy for Our Time
Hanson on Harry Reid’s McCarthy style.
Victor Davis Hanson: “We should ask Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the same question once posed to Sen. Joseph McCarthy by U.S. Army head counsel Robert N. Welch: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?’ … McCarthy in the 1950s became infamous for smearing his opponents with lurid allegations that he could not prove, while questioning their patriotism. Reid has brought back to the Senate that exact same McCarthy style of six decades ago – and trumped it. … For the left, Reid’s utility as an attack dog (like McCarthy’s utility to Republicans) outweighs the downside of his crude bombast. … Reid’s viciousness also serves as a deterrent. Why tangle with the anything-goes Reid when it means endlessly replying to a litany of smears? Part Tammany Hall-style fixer, part pre-civil rights Democrat and part demagogic Joe McCarthy, Harry Reid is a throwback to a type of American politics better left forgotten.”
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