Be Careful Beck

Glen Beck,

I confess that though my wife and I are regular viewers, I’m not always sure how to take your antics. However I had a chilling feeling this week as I watched you at the blackboard. I felt we were in Wheeling, West Virginia and it was February 9, 1950. Let me explain.

Sometime ago I read Ann Coulter’s fine book, “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.” As a product of the public school system I started to squirm a little as she started to rehabilitate Senator Joe McCarthy. I was schooled in all the standard liberal mythology about McCarthy and like most people I misidentified the activities of the House of Un-American Activities with those of McCarthy’s Senate work. However, Ann Coulter planted the seed and I was ready when “Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies” by M. Stanton Evans hit the book stands. “Blacklisted” was fascinating and after reading it I realized that the only victim of “McCarthyism” was Joe McCarthy himself. So now that I am properly steeped in the actual history of that era, it is chilling to see the parallels between 1950 and 2009. It is also why I think that your evening call to wake up is very much like the speech that Senator Joe McCarthy delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1950. Further, it is essential that you keep speaking out.

You must proceed with some degree of care as with Joe McCarthy, liberals cannot allow you to continue to speak out. They will first try to discredit you and then they will try to destroy you, just as they did Joe McCarthy. These are the things to watch out for:

- Trivial or tangential issue. Liberals will try to pin you down when you make a mistake or miss-speak on an issue regardless of how trivial or tangential that issue might be. For McCarthy the media and his foes in Congress railed against the number of communists that McCarthy alleged were in the State Department. No one knows what the actual number was even today. But whether there were 192, 205, 220, or 2 – the point was that there were communists who were bent on the destruction of our country with access to our most important secrets and who were advising our leaders who were making policy. The liberals who attack you don’t ever have to be right – but you have to be right all the time.

- A Senate or House investigation at this time may not spell victory. Senator McCarthy made so much noise that the democrats in power could no longer ignore it. You may be painting the Obama/Pelosi/Reid axis into a similar corner. But the Tydings Committee (named for Maryland democrat Senator Millard Tydings) that followed was one of the more despicable chapters in the history of the United States Senate. Empowered to investigate the charges of communists in the State Department, Tydings allied himself instead with the Truman administration and the State Department to defeat McCarthy. The Truman administration suppressed the release of evidence, invented evidence, and viciously attacked Joe McCarthy throughout the entire episode. Were Senator Reid to do the right thing and hold congressional hearings on the criminal enterprises that you are exposing, it is unlikely that that the puppets will shine the light of truth on the puppeteers.

- Don’t attack an American icon. One of McCarthy’s biggest mistakes was to attack General George C. Marshall. As Secretary of State more of the world fell under the domination of communism than during the tenure of possibly any other Secretary of State, but Marshall was not a communist. One could argue that he was easily duped and extremely ill advised, but he wasn’t a communist. You may have already erred in this area by attacking Senator John McCain. He is also easily duped and he may be a Teddy Roosevelt Progressive, but you should lay off. No personal attacks on people who are just ignorant.

- Don’t attack a beloved American institution. McCarthy’s other big blunder was to take on the United States Army. Certainly as we look back, there were communists operating within army communications facilities, but open warfare with the United States Army lost the guy who should have been McCarthy’s biggest ally, President Dwight Eisenhower. You are certainly safe exposing ACORN unless liberals are able to turn this argument into an attack on the poor or minorities. ACORN, Tides, and the Apollo Alliance are certainly criminal enterprises and should be safe targets.

The liberals are going to come after you with everything they have. The Republican fair-weather warriors abandoned McCarthy because he made some serious tactical errors and his principle subordinates got caught up in some unsavory antics. Your friends will abandon you as well if you appear petty, hateful, or too casual with the truth. With that said, McCarthy’s work enabled the Republican landslide victory in 1952. As the media and his enemies increasingly painted McCarthy as a lunatic and characterized his tactics as savage and unfair, McCarthy found himself alone and it destroyed him. Does any of this begin to look familiar?

You do need to cultivate friends in this pursuit. The American people were buoying McCarthy in the beginning, but as you know they can be very fickle. When President Eisenhower abandoned McCarthy that was the beginning of the end for him. You do need high cover. Perhaps you get that from News Corporation – I hope so.

Your Friend,