The soft treachery of low information journalism.

Dear Free Beacon,

In “CNN Reporter: Trump Tweets Worse Than McCarthyism,” David Rutz writes that Sen. McCarthy was censured in 1954 "for his relentless charges that Soviet and communist spies had infiltrated various American institutions.” 

As is the case with about 99 p/c of what is said and written about Joseph McCarthy, this statement is untrue and grossly misleading to readers. 

While McCarthy himself would have been the first to point out that he was targeted by his political opponents for his “relentless” (and very successful*) efforts to expose Communists embedded in the US government, he was not, in fact, censured for them. 

Originally, there were under consideration a whopping 46 censure charges; however, just one of these charges came to a vote. According to this single charge, McCarthy was censured for failing to cooperate with and “repeatedly abusing” a run-amok-subcommittee investigating his finances in 1952. (The subcommittee found no wrongdoing.) A second censure charge would be tacked on after formal hearings had ended. According to this second charge, McCarthy was censured for calling the special committee conducting the censure investigation the “unwitting handmaiden” of the Communist Party.

That’s it.

I am sure you will see fit to make the appropriate correction.

Best wishes,

Diana West

*https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2014/01/21/mccarthyism-by-the-numbers/