Appearing today on the Toledo Blade's Web site is the article "Candide: Toledo Opera production offers the liveliest aspects of opera, musical theater, and operetta." Author Sally Vallongo writes:
In the 1950s, as then-Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R., Wis.) and his House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated liberal and progressive artists in search of Communist-oriented dissidents, Hellman and Bernstein collaborated on what would become one of several major works fomented by government activities: the play and film Cradle Will Rock, and Arthur Miller’s play and opera The Crucible are others.
Sometimes, readers must wonder if newspaper correspondents ever passed a class in basic civics. If journalists had, they’d know that Congress consists of two bodies, the House and the Senate. A member of one body doesn’t chair a committee from the other. No Senator – not even Joe McCarthy – could run a House committee. A clue might have been that his title was senator rather than congressman or representative, but perhaps that's expecting too much.
Moreover, McCarthy didn't devote a great deal of time to investigating, as Vallongo asserts, "liberal and progressive artists." Possibly she's confusing his inquiries with those of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which held hearings on Hollywood's comrades years before McCarthy launched his anti-Communist crusade.
The mainstream media are justifiably criticized for their reporting of what's taking place now. They don't do such a hot job of covering the past either.
