"It is scarcely credible today that such figures could wield the power to dominate the news, eclipse careers and cause whole industries and institutions to grovel in fear. But indeed they did."
No, this isn't me, projecting 25 years into the future, telling my grandchildren about George W. Bush and his cadre of neo-con punks. This is Jack Anderson, from his 1979 Confessions of a Muckraker, speaking about a Congress that, from the late 1940s until Sen. Joe McCarthy's censure in 1954, had moved the nation as close to a right-wing dictatorship as it has ever been. This group of witch-hunters, race-baiters, saber-rattling drunks and demagogues cowed a president (Truman) into implementing a Loyalty Order that all government employees were required to sign and pushed Hollywood to voluntarily (yes) create its infamous blacklists.
The same dynamic is alive today. However, now it is the White House that has Congress cowed. Back in Anderson's day, America was pulled from the maw of totalitarianism by its press: a handful of journalists refused to be cowed and, risking all, backed those weasels down. Their names are legend. Edward R. Murrow. George Seldes. I.F. Stone. Carey McWilliams. Drew Pearson. Jack Anderson.
With the possible exception of Sy Hersh and Molly Ivins (RIP)—generally considered mavericks—not one member of the mainstream media measures up to the stature of these heroes. Our conventionally wise pundits are all about protecting their asses and access to power. Yes, sire, anything you want, sire. Grovel, grovel.
Wolf Blitzer's performance as CNN's moderator of the Democratic debate in Las Vegas last week was just another episode in groveling. Every single question that he asked the various candidates, from Clinton to Kucinich, was accusatory. This group of candidates, any one of whom would make a 10 times better president than anyone the Republicans will nominate, was treated like a lineup of suspected criminals, and by the so-called "liberal media."
Perhaps as both consolation and cautionary tale, it may be instructive to recall how one journalist changed American history back in the days of McCarthyism.
At the beginning of the "Red Scare," Drew Pearson was one of the few journalists who were not intimidated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), chaired by the demagogic John Parnell Thomas. After one of his friends (Laurence Duggan) was driven to suicide by HUAC harassment, Pearson roamed into the very heart of this totalitarian thicket, doggedly pursuing rumors of Thomas's corruption until he had documents to corroborate it.
Pearson's column on Aug. 4, 1948 was one of the landmarks in American truth-telling. In it, he exposed Thomas as the cheap thug he really was, citing how this influential man had taken kickbacks from his office staff. Thomas, arguably the most powerful man in Congress (is there a Delayed echo here?), was forced to resign, convicted and sent to prison. Unnoticed at the time, perhaps, was Pearson's more important feat: thwarting America's move toward right-wing dictatorship.
Two years later, Pearson took on the new leader of the "witch hunt," Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), who called the reporter "the voice of international Communism." By the time Pearson and Jack Anderson were through with him, McCarthy's name became synonymous with the dark legacy of fear he created.
Like Pearson and Anderson and their ilk, any member of the mainstream media could change American history today. There's a public out there that is ready and waiting.
