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This post by Les Adler first appeared on OpEdNews, January 5, 2018.
In the past year, Theodore Roosevelt's characterization of the presidency as a "bully pulpit" for moral leadership and political uplift has been twisted into something far different and far more dangerous.
Not content with his campaign of schoolyard name-calling against political rivals ("little Marco," "crooked Hillary"), Donald Trump, as president, has graduated into using his elevated position to issue demeaning taunts about North Korean dictator "little rocket man," to intimidate him, and most recently into declaring twitter-warfare with him by comparing the size of their respective nuclear buttons. A bad joke at best; at worst a terrifying threat of planet-scale nuclear annihilation demeaning to the Office and ultimately destructive of America's remaining stature as a trustworthy world leader.
Significantly, the career of the country's most infamous demagogue
ended not with a bang but with a whimper.
Censured at long last by the Senate on December 2, 1954 by a bi-partisan
65-22 vote for inexcusable and insulting" conduct "unbecoming a senator," Joe
McCarthy slowly lost political influence, sank deeper into alcoholism, slunk
off the public stage and died in 1957 at the age of 48.
His fall followed a three-year reign of terror in which he increasingly misused his position as chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to attack, publicly indict and essentially persecute and ruin the names and careers of those called before the committee. Aided by his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, and protected by political allies in congress as well as the climate of fear his attacks engendered, McCarthy's fame soared despite his wild, often unproven charges, use of innuendo, outrageous lies and his technique of bullying and browbeating witnesses.
Two decisive moments in his downfall stand out in the historical narrative, both important lessons to heed in handling bullies of any stature. McCarthy's ultimate unraveling came in an attack on the integrity of the U. S. Army for allegedly coddling subversives and led directly to the nationally televised clash between the Senator and the chief lawyer for the Army, Boston attorney Joseph Welch. In front of an audience of millions, after watching McCarthy attempt to smear a young attorney in Welch's practice, Welch finally pronounced the unforgettable judgment which at long last publicly captured McCarthy as the bully he was, "Have you no sense of decency, sir. At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
The second also occurred on national television, on March 9, 1954, when the highly respected broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow, directed an entire "See It Now" program to an exposure of McCarthy for the publicity-hungry bully he was. Using McCarthy's own words, Murrow examined and rebutted the Senator's extreme charges and methods, clearly and reasonably laying-out for his national audience the Senator's use of lies, distortions and half-truths--and their corrosive effects on our national life and international reputation.
In summing up, Murrow spoke eloquently both to his era and presciently to those of us in the far future who might be confronting similar challenges:
"This is no time," he stated, "for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. We proclaim ourselves the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
Senator McCarthy, for all the damage he did domestically and to America's reputation abroad, did not have the power to start a war, much less risk a nuclear "exchange." President Trump does have that power! And now his intemperate and belligerent tweets from that much-diminished "bully pulpit" have put us all at risk.
It is past time for those in positions of responsibility and power--particularly those in the President's own party--to directly confront the challenge Trump represents in the name of the welfare of the nation and the world.
-----
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In the past year, Theodore Roosevelt's characterization of the presidency as a "bully pulpit" for moral leadership and political uplift has been twisted into something far different and far more dangerous.
Not content with his campaign of schoolyard name-calling against political rivals ("little Marco," "crooked Hillary"), Donald Trump, as president, has graduated into using his elevated position to issue demeaning taunts about North Korean dictator "little rocket man," to intimidate him, and most recently into declaring twitter-warfare with him by comparing the size of their respective nuclear buttons. A bad joke at best; at worst a terrifying threat of planet-scale nuclear annihilation demeaning to the Office and ultimately destructive of America's remaining stature as a trustworthy world leader.
Teddy Roosevelt, who
first identified the presidency as a "bully pulpit"
He has employed that same presidential pulpit to regularly
disparage the integrity of entire government agencies such as the CIA, FBI and
the Justice Department, railing against responsible government officials and
news media ("fake news") when they won't accede to his latest whims or accept
his version of "alternative facts." In a
stream of attacks against minorities, immigrants and legitimate protestors, he
has turned the moral force of the presidency against those who are often most
vulnerable, further dividing rather than uniting the nation.
These are the actions of a bully, the likes of which the
country has not seen on the national stage since the meteoric rise and fall of Senator
Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's. In that pre-internet world, McCarthy, like Trump
today, showed an instinct for manipulating the national media, managing to
dominate news cycles and public attention by stoking public fears about foreign
and domestic 'enemies' hard at work undermining major national institutions.
His fall followed a three-year reign of terror in which he increasingly misused his position as chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to attack, publicly indict and essentially persecute and ruin the names and careers of those called before the committee. Aided by his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, and protected by political allies in congress as well as the climate of fear his attacks engendered, McCarthy's fame soared despite his wild, often unproven charges, use of innuendo, outrageous lies and his technique of bullying and browbeating witnesses.
Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn
Credit: Wikipedia.org/Creative Commons
Two decisive moments in his downfall stand out in the historical narrative, both important lessons to heed in handling bullies of any stature. McCarthy's ultimate unraveling came in an attack on the integrity of the U. S. Army for allegedly coddling subversives and led directly to the nationally televised clash between the Senator and the chief lawyer for the Army, Boston attorney Joseph Welch. In front of an audience of millions, after watching McCarthy attempt to smear a young attorney in Welch's practice, Welch finally pronounced the unforgettable judgment which at long last publicly captured McCarthy as the bully he was, "Have you no sense of decency, sir. At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
The second also occurred on national television, on March 9, 1954, when the highly respected broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow, directed an entire "See It Now" program to an exposure of McCarthy for the publicity-hungry bully he was. Using McCarthy's own words, Murrow examined and rebutted the Senator's extreme charges and methods, clearly and reasonably laying-out for his national audience the Senator's use of lies, distortions and half-truths--and their corrosive effects on our national life and international reputation.
In summing up, Murrow spoke eloquently both to his era and presciently to those of us in the far future who might be confronting similar challenges:
"This is no time," he stated, "for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. We proclaim ourselves the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
Senator McCarthy, for all the damage he did domestically and to America's reputation abroad, did not have the power to start a war, much less risk a nuclear "exchange." President Trump does have that power! And now his intemperate and belligerent tweets from that much-diminished "bully pulpit" have put us all at risk.
It is past time for those in positions of responsibility and power--particularly those in the President's own party--to directly confront the challenge Trump represents in the name of the welfare of the nation and the world.
-----
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