During CNN’s last presidential debate in Des Moines, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sen. Joseph McCarthy had “blacklisted people” and that Joseph Welch said to him, “Have you no sense of decency?” If anyone in 2020 found this reference puzzling, it would be hard to blame them.
Sen. Klobuchar repeats the common belief that Joe McCarthy headed the House Committee on Un-American Activities that investigated Communist influence in the movies. Actually, senators do not serve on House committees, and McCarthy never had anything to do with Hollywood. The Hollywood liberals who fought the screen Stalinists, sometimes in bloody street battles, considered McCarthy