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Main Page » corrections

D'oh!! (corrections and retractions)

by Mike on Tue 07 Feb 2006 05:59 PM EST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

Eugene McCarthy

Yesterday's article (now entitled "The second coming of Joseph McCarthy") contained a major error. In two places in the article, I mistakenly identified the mastermind of the witch-hunts of the 1950's as "Eugene McCarthy." Now I am telling you folks in all honesty that "Eugene" didn't seem correct to me when I was posting the piece and I had even considered simply calling it "The second coming of McCarthyism in America." But I decided that title was redundant because McCarthyism was largely an American phenomenon anyway. So I went with the other title. A few folks read the piece and didn't raise any questions about it, so any uncertainty quickly left my mind. I'm still not sure why I didn't bother rechecking all my facts before finally posting the article...A few people close to me have told me for years that I have a horrible tendency to think that I am always right—But then again, I have always just figured they are all mistaken.

Anyway, several hours later I was thinking about the whole "McCarthyism" thing and I flashed back many, many years to a time when I tried to have a read of Pat Buchanan's book, "Right from the Beginning." In his book, Buchanan shares his loving (make that sickeningly loving) memories of the man he knew as "Tailgunner Joe," aka Joseph McCarthy. A quick encyclopedia check confirmed my mistake. My initial thought was "Damn!" This was followed up with "Damn!" and finally, yet another "Damn!" I quickly fixed the errors in the article, but by then, e-mail notifications which included the errors had gone out to greeklish.org subscribers and the incorrect title had also been posted to several blog syndication web sites. Damn, indeed. And it had only been a few weeks since I posted an article complaining about the inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles! (On a positive note, my turnaround in fixing this error was a wee bit quicker than Wikipedia's turnaround on the Siegenthaler biography—12 hours versus 4 months.)

Sometime later, I saw an e-mail in my greeklish.org inbox. The subject line read "It's NOT Eugene" and I thought, "Uh-oh...I'm in for it now!" However, the e-mail’s author kindly pointed out the error in my original post and in some subsequent correspondence, he shared a bit about his personal relationship with Eugene McCarthy. We had a brief yet pleasant exchange I appreciate his insight and candor.

Eugene McCarthy died on December 10, 2005 and I think his obituary was still fresh in my mind when I made my regrettable error last night. McCarthy was a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and served as a U.S. Congressman and as a U.S. Senator. Eugene McCarthy adamantly opposed the Vietnam War and he directly challenged the Johnson administration's policy on the war in his first run for President in 1968. McCarthy was in the forefront of progressive politics in America for many years and he is regarded by many as a true visionary and a man of integrity...In short, Eugene McCarthy was—and remains—the polar opposite of Joseph McCarthy.

Apologies to all for the confusion.

Further Reading
Eugene McCarthy bio from encyclopedia.com
Joseph McCarthy bio from encyclopedia.com
Photos from Eugene McCarthy's 1968 Presidential Campaign from jofreeman.com

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Comments

Re: D'oh!! (corrections and retractions)

by Antonis on Tue 07 Feb 2006 10:35 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Shame about this Eugene fellow. Now, because of Joseph, when people refer to him, MUST clarify "McCarthy - you know, not the evil one".

>I tried to have a read of Pat Buchanan's book

What on Earth compelled you to do that?

Re: Re: D'oh!! (corrections and retractions)

by Mike on Wed 08 Feb 2006 07:03 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Well...at the time I thought it would be entertaining. This was a long time ago -- I think it was 1992 or so. I didn't get very far past the "Tailgunner Joe" chapter.

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