Posted by
Mike Bates on Monday, February 14, 2011 12:10:27 AM
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) isn't alone in having trouble understanding
how the government is organized. In a Sunday article posted on the Chicago
Sun-Times's Web site, staff reporter Mary Houlihan
credits the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) with running the House
Committee on Un-American Activities. That would have been quite an
accomplishment, given the fact McCarthy never served in the House of
Representatives.
Houlihan writes of photographer Milton Rogovin, who died last month. After
military service during World War II, Rogovin "organized a chapter of the
optometrists’ union and served as librarian for the Communist Party of
Buffalo."
Then the inevitable happened. In October 1957, Rogovin was
caught in the net cast by the House Un-American Activities Committee helmed by
Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It was the waning days of the Communist witch hunt, and
the experience would change Rogovin’s life.
If October, 1957 indeed represented the waning days of the Communist witch
hunt, the situation was even worse for Joe McCarthy. He had died the previous
May.
You'd think McCarthy's title of Senator might serve as a clue that he didn't
chair a House Committee. Partially due to the mainstream media's eagerness to
attach his name or “ism” to as many unsavory things as possible, misinformation
abounds. And yet they still complain that Joe didn't get his facts
right.