Is this tweet to get us to dig McCarthy, because he was right but failed to get the communist infiltrators out of our institutions?
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used in reference to what are considered demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
William Bennett, former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education, summed up his perspective in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope:
“The cause of anti-communism, which united millions of Americans and which gained the support of Democrats, Republicans and independents, was undermined by Sen. Joe McCarthy … McCarthy addressed a real problem: disloyal elements within the U.S. government. But his approach to this real problem was to cause untold grief to the country he claimed to love … Worst of all, McCarthy besmirched the honorable cause of anti-communism. He discredited legitimate efforts to counter Soviet subversion of American institutions”