For all of you history buffs, why is Fred Fisher a significant figure in American history? For all intents and purposes, Fisher was the last person Senator Joe McCarthy accused of being a communist. During the infamous McCarthy-Army hearings in June of 1954, the Wisconsin Senator got into an argument with Army counsel Joseph Welch. In an effort to discredit Welch, McCarthy claimed that he had communists in his own law firm–naming Fred Fisher by name. That led to this famous response from Welch:
The McCarthy Hearings were among the first live government proceedings broadcast on national television–and for several weeks they got huge ratings. But slowly, people came to doubt all of the accusations that McCarthy and his legal counsel Roy Cohn were throwing around. The man whose mere mention of your name as a suspected commie could get you fired or blacklisted was exposed as merely being an opportunist, with little evidence to back up his accusations. Following his dressing down by Welch in defense of Fred Fisher, nearly all public support for McCarthy withered away–and he was left a broken man. He was censured by the Senate and died–likely from the side-effects of alcoholism–a couple of years later.
I have to wonder, who is going to be the Fred Fisher of the current sexual misconduct craze gripping the nation? Who will be the person accused that makes America say “Ok, that’s enough. We don’t want to hear anymore accusations. We don’t want more people’s lives ruined”?
Ninety-three year old former President George Bush wasn’t that person. I thought for sure Senator Al Franken was going to be that person. He didn’t quite go full Joseph Welch, but his resignation speech on the floor of the Senate certainly contained plenty of defiance. New Yorker Magazine reporter Ryan Lizza was even more aggressive in his denial of allegations against him–but he was fired anyway.
McCarthyism lasted about four years. But that was in a time before the 24-7 news media cycle that inundates us with information–and commentary–on what is happening constantly. I expect our current effort to “root out the menace” won’t last nearly that long.
