This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a respected author and former Washington Post journalist calling on Republicans to denounce President Trump as they did former Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., a half-century ago.
David Maraniss, who has written a new book about his communist parents, recalled on C-SPAN the turnabout by an anti-communist former House member, Rep. Charles Potter, D-Del. In 1952, Potter questioned the father of Maraniss in a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee, then wrote a book critical of the McCarthy era.
Talking to host Brian Lamb, Maraniss said, “Will a Republican 10 years from now write a book like that?”
In his latest book, A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father, Maraniss recalled the events during the McCarthy era and Potter’s book.
In the Q&A interview aired on Sunday, Maraniss explained:
“So, jump forward to the 1960s, he wrote a book called Days of Shame, where he acknowledged a lot of the mistakes that the Republicans made during that period: Allowing McCarthy to go as far as he did, even writes a section where he defends the Fifth Amendment and regrets that it was used as a way of saying people were guilty.”
Q&A with @davidmaraniss on his book, “A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father” – 8pm ET on C-SPAN https://t.co/RSGdsw8KVN pic.twitter.com/1cqCS5FpC9
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 12, 2019
He continued, “It was the Republicans, Margaret Chase Smith, several other Republicans, including President Eisenhower, who saw the excesses of what was going on [with McCarthyism] and they stopped it. Days of Shame. Will a Republican 10 years from now write a book like that?”
Media Research Center’s Brent Baker, the vice president of research, explains our weekly pick: “The so-called McCarthy era has long been a bête noire of the press corps, more sympathetic to the good intentions of those accused of being a communist than the threat to the U.S. and world freedom from communists. The fact Maraniss is as ashamed of Trump as he is of the McCarthy years shows just how deep runs the disgust for Trump among journalists who see him as a once-in-a-century blight.”
Rating: Three out of five screams.
