McCarthyism, New and Old

Congressional hearings showcase our elected officials at their worst. The spectacle of supposed servants of the people castigating their poor witnesses from raised platforms, like so many feudal lords, is inconsistent with our democratic values, not too mention basic politeness. The most recent offender is Barney Frank. Here's an example from a couple weeks ago:

"We will also be asking Mr. Liddy to give us the names of the recipients. They have sent us some information under the confidentiality rules. I've spoken to Chairman Kanjorski about this. If Mr. Liddy declines to give us the names, then I will convene the committee to vote a subpoena for the names. So we do intend to use our power to get the names of the people here."

This quotation caused Rush Limbaugh to dub Mr. Frank's antics "The New McCarthyism", to which the Gentleman from Massachusetts replied, "I didn't know that Rush Limbaugh thought that McCarthy was a bad guy. That's probably one of the few times that either Fox News or Mr. Limbaugh have said bad words about Joe McCarthy. He'd always been a right-wing hero. In fact, I'm not -- what McCarthy did was to falsely accuse people of things and to make guilt by association arguments or talk about their political associations and -- in ways that were -- were unfair. I'm simply asking for factual information about people working for a company that is mostly owned by the federal government."

Barney's retort is a clever line but a bad argument. Specifically, it is an example of the Fallacy of Package Dealing. This fallacy consists of suggesting that because an opponent buys in to one aspect of a phenomenon, McCarthyism in this case, that he must buy into the whole package. Even though Rush Limbaugh may approve of McCarthy's crusade to eliminate Soviet agents from the State Department, it does not follow that he approves of methods associated with McCarthyism such as arguments of guilt by association or demands to name names.

Mr. Frank's charge that McCarthy "falsely accused people of things" is also incorrect. We now know, thanks to the declassification of the Venona project, that nearly all of the officials accused of espionage by McCarthy were, in fact, guilty. In that they differ from some of the executives accused of incompetence by Barney Frank.

The Logic Critic gives Congressman Frank…

2 Blades - Wrong.