Sen. Joe McCarthy opened up hearings against the US Army in 1954, describing them as soft on communism.
Sound familiar?
Instead of rooting out nonexistent communists, on June 9th of that year, McCarthy was ridiculed by Joseph N. Welch, who was representing the Army at the time.
During the infamous Red Scare craze, McCarthy attacked innocent Americans with no proof or accountability was was finally brought to his knees by Welch, which ended his rein of terror.
On June 9, 1954, McCarthy again became agitated at Welch’s steady destruction of each of his arguments and witnesses. In response, McCarthy charged that Frederick G. Fisher, a young associate in Welch’s law firm, had been a long-time member of an organization that was a “legal arm of the Communist Party.” Welch was stunned. As he struggled to maintain his composure, he looked at McCarthy and declared, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” It was then McCarthy’s turn to be stunned into silence, as Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
The audience of citizens and newspaper and television reporters burst into wild applause. Just a week later, the hearings into the Army came to a close. McCarthy, exposed as a reckless bully, was officially condemned by the U.S. Senate for contempt against his colleagues in December 1954. During the next two-and-a-half years McCarthy spiraled into alcoholism. Still in office, he died in 1957.
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