The Return of McCarthyism

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

McCain didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

I think that's why he won the nomination. The GOP did not want to do the clean-up after Bush.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

McCain didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

I think that's why he won the nomination. The GOP did not want to do the clean-up after Bush.

I think its more likely that Bush ended up being too divisive and polarised the party. The pro-war neocons Vs. the traditional conservatives.

I believe the general feeling was that Bush had spent too much time on foreign policy and national security and that the country suffered as a result.

[Joseph & Ana 0]

Pike - slight segway, but what game is that picture from in your sig? It looks familiar. I always played the old games like that.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It has also been mentioned that the equation was to point out the idiocy of the criteria being used to suggest that Obama is the victim of McCarthy-like harrassment.

Gabi, Good grief - this isn't about victimization of anyone. It's about the demagoguery by Right Wing talk show celebrities in trying to scare the American public about Obama and his policies. You're either being intentionally obtuse about the obvious parallels in speak and conjecture or you just don't understand what McCarthyism was about. The congressional hearings were only one part of McCarthyism. As a teacher, you should know that.

[HAL 9000 96]

Oh boy. Sorry, Gabi... the allowed number of quoted blocks of text was surpassed. Here I repost without the majority of the quotes.

Red

And you should be afraid as well. You are not now because you are standing on the right side of the fence, [and you know this how? believe me... I've been on both sides of fences and fear was the last thing on my mind when it came to challenging authority when it had to be challenged] but the tide will turn and you will be standing on the wrong side of the fence someday with the opposition wielding the power and you could find yourself in the position of a Joe the Plumber, [well of course, if I were stupid enough to make statements based on false premises, like Joe did...] and you might not be so fortunate as he is to enjoy the scrutiny or to survive it. [this is beyond silly] Apparentlly, despite the "substantiated" attacks on him, as one poster suggested, he had actually done nothing wrong. [fine. other than make a misinformed tax comment, true.]

Now as for non-answers... I think you just need to delve deeper into the nature of the term 'misinformation.'

Like I said, there is a very clear difference when it comes to gathering information on neighbors vs gathering the false information information spread around by smear campaigns.

I don't care about the term "misinformation". I care about them asking for people to send in the "misinformer's" personal emails. But you've totally ignored that. [so?] Either because you actually are blind to it, or because you are trying to obfuscate. [More like I could care less in believing the government is out to collect a Big Brotheresque database on idiots that can't listen and read to the actual health care proposals being stated?]

As for ripping apart of a citizen... I have yet to see Joe's guts on his Ohio lawn. Unless it was some sort of self-sacrifice that's resulted in (as mentioned above) a book deal and some (I assume) lucrative activities. You seem to be making a big deal about very little.

I guess you don't understand figurative language. Again, when it is you or yours squirming under the microscope, sorry I forgot you don't understand figurative language. [been there, done that.] When the power has shifted and is in the hands of the opposition and the media [i wonder how the evil liberal media elites would act with that opposition in power again] and public officials are "rightfully" deeply delving into the private lives of private citizens who disagree with them, [is this what the Obama administration did, threatened to do, or suggest they'd do? I think not. What the media does is another thing and I suggest you learn to tell the two apart.] I will still believe that it is wrong, frightening, and stifling to freedom of speech and a sort of thougtht police state, but I will still be too frightened to stand up for that citizen. [Like I said, fear of the media is your problem to deal with.] I'm not making a big deal because I care about Joe the Plumber. I'm making a relatively small deal, that you are dismissing, because I care about equality, the sense of private citizens that they should be able to speak freely, and the balance of power. [in the media? Cool. Like I said (and you missed more than once), I also think its disgusting the media has the ability to make people afraid to question authorities through obsessive journalism.]

And... 'intellectual parallels' usually imply the rational and logical patterns used to arrive at conclusions between different phenomena. Think about that for a moment.

"Intellectual parallels [being] astoundingly similar" prove there is a "Return to McCarthyism" in one post from you but then you [which one? what I think is that you misread what I posted, which is more likely] agree in another there is not a "Return to McCarthyism" but now you say you can conclude based on a rational and logical pattern between an arm of the government using its power to hunt down and destroy private citizens (McCarthyism) and Glenn Beck and Michael Savage (private citizens) using their pulpits to call the most powerful man in the country (the head of the government) a communist. (I'm sorry. I know I keep saying "destroy" and no one was actually crushed to smithereens just like Joe's guts weren't strewn over his Ohio yard. Maybe I should say that their backgrounds were delved deeply into so that they were intimidated and sometimes even brought to trial and so that as a result freedom of speech was stifled and and private citizens begain being afraid to speak out, but then I might be drawing a parallel . . .) Anyway, do the astounding similarities prove that there is a "Return to McCarthyism" or does the rational and logical pattern you used cause you to conclude that there is a "Return to McCarthyism" or do you think, as you have stated that there is NOT a "Return to McCarthyism?" Which is it? Context. It's all about that. Think about it for a moment and when you have decided, yes there is or no there isn't a return to McCarthyism, let me know. [Huh?]

McCain made Joe the Plumber a figurehead for his election campaign. Not only that Joe chose to participate.

This is kind of what happens when you put yourself in the firing line of public life.

Joe the Plumber became a figurehead in McCain's election campaign because he had immediately been put in the firing line. Not the other way around. The background checks began immediately after Obama answered the question, not after McCain took Joe in. The media continued hounding him, but it wasn't McCain's support that instigated the scrutinizing.

Nope. That's not how it happened. The event at which Joe tossed a question at Obama took place on 12 October. Nothing happened after that event. It was three days later on 15 October that McCain made several references to Joe. Also that day, Joe appeared on CBS Evening News - not that he had to but this is what made him more or less a public figure. He held a press conference on 16 October - don't know, I'm a private citizen and have never held a press conference. ABC News reported on his unpaid taxes in Ohio on 16 October. He's been on the News ever since pretty much throughout the rest of the campaign.

That's what I think was strange - it wasn't just that Joe was videotaped asking Obama a question (which just happened to resonate with a portion of McCain's base), it was that he used it as a springboard to court publicity in the media - and he did it deliberately.

Indeed.