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RED PERIL

Is GOP's Ted Cruz Like McCarthy for Calling Harvard Profs Communists?

New Yorker says yes, Cruz doubles down

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by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t

Image: AP

"Is Senator Ted Cruz our new McCarthy?" asks this weekend's New Yorker. The question is based on a speech Cruz (R-TX) made in 2010, in which he accused Harvard Law School of "harboring a dozen Communists on its faculty when he studied there."

"There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists!" said Cruz. "There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government."

Cruz has his facts wrong, says Harvard Law School Prof. Charles Fried, a Republican who served under Reagan. Fried told the New Yorker that he knows other Republicans on the faculty. He added that some faculty members "were quite radical, but I doubt if any had allegiance or sympathy with anything called 'the Communists,' and certainly wouldn't want to overthrow the government."

For his part Cruz has doubled down. "Senator Cruz's substantive point was absolutely correct," his spokeswoman told the Blaze. "In the mid-1990s, the Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of 'critical legal studies' - a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism."

Cruz was first compared to McCarthy after he aggressively questioned Chuck Hagel two weeks ago. MSNBC's Chris Matthews proclaimed that "this is McCarthyism," while Daily Kos writer Meteor Blades called the questioning a "rancid McCarthyist display."

Via the New Yorker and the Blaze.
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Was Cruz behaving like McCarthy when he called the Harvard Profs communists?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • Rocker
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    It pretty much follows along with politics in general these days. What happens if nobody really gives a diddly squat.
  • Rocker
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    @jessejaymes - Ya know, I think we touched on this before, as a younger entity, I seemed to spend some time in some rougher drinking establishments for whatever reason. The rule back then was to be careful what you shot off your mouth about or you could get smacked (or worse). The thing is, if your mouth got you in trouble calling another person a less than desirable name it was your tuff luck. General consensus was if you got your a$$ whupped then you shoulda kept yer trap shut. After all this PC stuff happened and people found out you could lawyer up to prove it wasn't your fault you called the biggest, meanest Motorscooter in the joint 'light in the loafers' and he stomped a mudhole in your backside, what it amounts to is that you can say anything about anybody without worry in exercising your right to free speech. That turned loose just about anybody and everybody with a limited vocabulary and was prone to grandstanding from a soapbox. IMHO.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Rocker That's about right. I wouldn't really have that much objection to most of our congress people getting their asses whipped while we're at it.
  • View all 12 replies >
  • MadAmerican
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    The New Yorker and NBC affiliated news are both Obama attack dog media outlets. McCarthyism? It's a man's opinion about when he was there. What's the big deal? Oh it's a republican!!!! Now I get it. Attack, attack, attack.
  • o
    Sonny
    !
    No. It was a lot more than just "some mans opinion". One definition of it was: "...the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence.." ---The victims of those kinds of "smear tactics" during the Mccarthy era numbered into the thousands. Many people were unjustly arrested. Many more lost their jobs. And all of this with NO credible evidence---just "some guys opinion"....Does anyone think that, that is in anyway justifiable?
  • View all 14 replies >
  • stepped_in_it
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    Wondering how many more decades it will take the GOP to realize that this is the 21st century and that Communists laid down on a death bed (for the most part) 30 years ago. I know it took the GOP until 1950's to realize it was the 20th century, so, with that guideline, it will be 2050 before the GOP "wakes" up.....if they still exist!
  • o
    Seamus
    !
    Traditional Leninism may have collapsed (except in a few particularly awful third-world hellholes, like Cuba and North Korea), but socialism is still alive, and sucking the blood out of the Western powers.

    And for all intents and purposes, communism and "social democracy" are interchangeable. But while communism is akin to be murdered, socialism is more like committing suicide.
  • u
    BossTweed
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    No one expects you and the anachist occupy people to have any gratitude for the blessings of being American. America's fatal flaw was that we failed to raise our kids to appreciate our Country. We all own the shame and disgrace of letting them down.
  • o
    Sonny
    !
    Well, you see. That's the problem with Republicans---They are always living in the past. Sometimes the far distant past.
  • View all 13 replies >
  • u
    Cheenoguy
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    Lets see:
    Mcarthy said there were 205 Communists in the state department without evidence or ever providing proof.
    Cruz said there were 12 communists on the Harvard teaching staff and can't provide proof.

    Sure sounds like a pathetic version of Mcarthy to me.
  • o
    Seamus
    !
    Why are all the socialists getting so upset? Academic leaders have pushing a kind of pseudo-Marxist, corporate socialism for some time, and it's simply common knowledge. You think they'd be proud, and even more boastful of their complete takeover of secondary education.
    Maybe Cruz didn't sound appreciative enough for the whiny little Bolshevik snobs. Perhaps he could say it while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt next time.
  • jessejaymes
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    All those hard core right wing rednecks out and tell us that the socialists have controlled colleges and studen't minds for a long long time and it's "common knowledge". If this is true how does that explain there being so many brain dead rednecks? Oh wait. How silly of me. They didn't go to college because they just knew edjumacation don meks u smert. Neve rmind. Carry on.
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    jessejaymes
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    @Seamus I guess that would be why my two daughters with Masters from UCLA and my business partners two daughters with Masters from Harvard would all four have jobs paying more than 100K a year and I'm told one of them is making 200K right at age 30. Not too bad for "liberal arts" girls. But hey, we need tire busters.
  • o
    Seamus
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    @jessejaymes

    If this is true (which I doubt, because you yourself don't have the vocabulary or critical thinking skills of someone old enough to have children), it is the exception instead of the rule.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Seamus LOLOLOL you are probably not my first choice as someone to assess the critical thinking skills of others. Hehehe. That was a good one.
  • View all 14 replies >
  • PNWest
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    Joseph McCarthy was as big of a scumbag as this country has ever produced. By the time this worthless alcoholic died he had be completely and totally discredited. It is no surprise that after his death he was replaced by Democrat William Proxmire, who called the late McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate and to America".
  • JimCO55
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    LOL ... that the problem with comparing Cruz to McCarthy ... they actually welcome the comparison, that really isn't an insult to them!
  • RoyFloyd
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    So what? Back in the college daze I had some profs who were communists and some who were capitalists, with most being between the two extremes. I figured both were unsustainable. Let students have a variety of viewpoints. They're old enough to decide.
  • DrFunkenstein
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    When people use terms like Communist, Socialist and Nazi as part of their free speech then they should be asked to define the words then when they cannot properly define the words we get to beat them until they are dead for being stupid. That's a right the first amendment should have extended, Fox News wouldn't last 2 commercial breaks, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and ALL Teabaggers wouldn't speak another word in their lifetime.
  • Jack-Black
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    Dont forget about Chris Hayes, Chris Mathews, Lawreence O' Donnell, Rv. achel Madcow, and Alvin Sharpton......and all the libtards who follow them like the sheeple they are.....
  • DrFunkenstein
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    @Jack-Black Maybe Sharpton but the rest of those people have an understanding of words and know what they mean before they use them. This is not about difference of opinion, you can have a different opinion and not be stupid about it like the talking heads on the Faux conservative networks. Between all the people I mentioned you couldn't get the collective group to be able to remember to wipe their own bottoms and tie their own shoes.
  • o
    Sonny
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    Not only is it not illegal to be a "communist" ---Many of the victims he ruined were not in anyway affiliated with the communist party...But the thing I can't understand is ---why doesn't the people that Cruz is trying to smear...Just stand up and tell him to "Shove his BS---where the Sun Don't Shine"....I mean just who the hell is he to get away with this kind of crap in 2013 ?
  • u
    seedtick
    !
    If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....Oh, hell, these guys are nothing less than socialists. They are idealogical at best. They have the right to be that way. And we have the right to identify them.
  • Party-Cults
    !
    Funny thing about this one is that I don't remember a big deal being made over Democrats comparing Republicans to Nazis in September 2012, even though that's obviously an unconscionable comparison. Why is it that it's only when conservatives or Republicans make comparisons or make accusations does everyone's panties suddenly get in a bunch? So, my response to this one is--I can care less that Cruz called Harvard Profs communists. Let them defend themselves--I have much more important things to worry about.
  • dances-weebles
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    @PoliticsMary we need several more choices in the poll... and maybe a better photo of this clown. the one you used makes it look like he probably drools on his shirt, sprays spit when he talks and talks with his mouth full.
  • Bobolinsky
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    Ok. I'm going to assume that Joseph McCarthy was the epitome of the Left's accusations of the right. He was/is the definition of right-wing intolerance...

    Does that mean that the Harvard Profs Cruz cited aren't communists/socialists?
  • Bobolinsky
    !
    Regardless, there are too many people in this world that think that the Lefts hatred of freedom is no reason to condemn freedom to the dustbin of history.

    In fact, we conservatives are interested in extending the gift of liberty to as many people as possible.

    What do you Libs have against Liberty?
  • Waynestew
    !
    @Bobolinsky I don't believe we should so easily throw around some labels. It is kind of like "the boy who cried Wolf" if you continue to point fingers in all directions"8 when someone actually is a communist or socialist we the public will all be so desensitized to that label that nobody really pay any attention. And then there's the thing that nobody really knows what these terms mean. For example many people don't understand that there are different types of Socialism.

    Personally I'd rather people talk about issues than use labels.
  • Waynestew
    !
    @Bobolinsky You may have forgotten Bob but I am not a liberal. Though I get accused of being so many times.

    I am an independent but I admittedly lean left more often.(someone said I am liberal I just don't know it LOL)

    Conservative sure don't believe in women or gay people having liberty. As a matter of fact I might be conservative if it was not for their position on morality. I do not believe morality can ever be legislative.
  • View all 6 replies >
  • jessejaymes
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    Next thing you know the rednecks are going to be telling us that being a football power makes Alabama or Oklahoma more important than Harvard.
  • u
    AceLuby
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    @Bobolinsky I can only speak of my (top 25) alma mater that isn't dependent on sports money... 95% of the money earned is through returns on investments and the other 5% from donations.
  • u
    AceLuby
    !
    @Bobolinsky I can only speak of my (top 25) alma mater that isn't dependent on sports money... 95% of the money earned is through returns on investments and the other 5% from donations from alumni.
  • Bobolinsky
    !
    And where the heck has Michael Mayday been?

    Did I miss his Bon Voyage?

    My apologies if I have. Michael deserves more than the "adios" that Politix didn't extend to the lone conservative/libertarian writer on this site.

    Did you all fire him or did he leave on his own?
  • jessejaymes
    !
    Despite Major corporations being ultra conservative the Ivy League Degrees remain the most coveted in the work force. And the highest earning on average. A Harvard MBA will give a new graduate an immediate salary of more than 30,000.00 a year higher entry level than a football factory degree. And more. This is not a case of debate. This is a case of out and out ignorance from the far right. Once again.
  • u
    Grubby
    !
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrot...

    Maybe $30,000 more than a football factory, which basically graduates the unemployed, but a Harvard degree doesn't really get you that much compared to other options. And...guess what this little school graduates? Mostly midwestern, conservative, Christian kids in a Republican dominated state - highly in demand by corporations including mine. OMG - the liberals are appalled.(Well, maybe just ignorant.)
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    There probably are more than a few there that are very liberal. Academic settings tend to allow for a certain intellectual extremism.

    But I seriously doubt any one of them is a communist.

    They all know that communism was never really practiced, and they all know that the totalitarian socialism that called itself communism was a miserable failure.

    This is a case of Mr Cruz using deliberately inflammatory language aimed directly at the fears of his 'base', to describe a situation that is common to many academic institutions. His purpose is to keep the teabagger/Foxhound true believers donating to his cause.
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