Joe McCarthy
was an evil, petty little man who preyed on the weak and powerless. Transcripts running 9600 pages in length of his nearly 400 secret hearings were released today. They were previously sealed for 50 years after the end of the investigation.

The New York Times analysis made it clear that those who seemed vulnerable in the closed hearings were the ones who were called in public. If you don't know more than the appelation "McCarthyism" it would be a good thing to study a bit.

This tactic should be familiar:

Exercising Fifth Amendment rights in these secret hearings was risky. In one hearing, McCarthy -- a Republican from Wisconsin elected to the Senate in 1946 -- threatened a New York City teacher who refused to answer all his questions. According to the transcript, McCarthy asked an aide to transmit the testimony to the city's board of education. "I assume with this testimony they will discharge this man," McCarthy said. He turned to the teacher and added, "I may say your wife's testimony is being transmitted to the board of education also. I assume she will be discharged too."

If some of this, and the notion of the Hollywood black is sounding vaguely familiar, it should. Check out The Return of the Blacklist.