The Portrayal of McCarthyism in Comic Books.

In a recent storyline in the comic book JSA (Justice Society of America) by DC Comics, the modern-day JSA traveled back in time to save the JSA of the early 1950s. It seems a time-traveling villain by the name of Degaton has it out for the JSA and he has traveled to the 1950s to destroy the team of that era so that the modern team will never exist. And what is Degaton's mode of destruction? Is it a bomb? Or will he murder the team members one-by-one? Nope. Degaton will be using Senator Joe McCarthy to permanently dismantle the JSA in the name of protecting America from communism.

Other than being an extremely predictable storyline by using McCarthy as the villian, the view of McCarthy as a threat to democracy is absurd. McCarthy is an easy target for anyone writing about the 1950s but nearly everything written about Senator McCarthy is libelous. Joe McCarthy was a patriot who was defending America from a very real threat: Communism. While McCarthy came into the game too late to really be of any use (we now know communist agents had already done irreperable damage to America before McCarthy got involved), his crusade to root out those who would sell our secrets to the Soviet Union was admirable.

Yet McCarthy is painted as a man who cared little about the truth and was going around falsely accusing people of being communists and trying to unjustly detain or imprison those same communists. Contrary to nutty claims by the left (who were sympathetic to the commies), no one was detained or imprisoned without due process. McCarthy was correct in that dozens of government employees were communists or communist sympathisers. The same lefties who had a tizzy fit about Joe McCarthy did not get worked up over New York Times columnist Walter Duranty covering up the crimes of Joe Stalin.

I like the writer of JSA (Geoff Johns) but his facts are in question. Especially when he tries to tie McCarthy in with the House Un-American Activities Commitee (HUAC). McCarthy had nothing to do with HUAC. Here's a little tidbit leftist "historians" gloss over: Senator McCarthy was (duh) in the Senate! The 'H' in HUAC stands for House as in the House of Representatives!

Where is the disdain for John F. Kennedy? Kennedy, who was a U.S. representitive and a U.S senator in the 1950s, was so anti-communist (yeah!), he made Joe McCarthy look like Alger Hiss. Kennedy was enthusiastically along for the ride in any attempt to root out communists in our midst. But Kennedy was a Democrat so I guess he gets a pass.