textbooks declare evolution to be hooey, he also cheerfully told the texan monthly in 2010 that joe mccarthy should be portray in order positively in american history. he wrote a memo on the texas textbook project saying, quote, read the latest on mccarthy. he was basically vindicated. there is a whole swath of the american right that has decided that mccarthyism should no longer be seen as a bad thing. and that may be why the whole friends of hamas allegation and the answer what this blogger said about you six years ago argument and the ted cruz how do we know you didn't get $200,000 from north korea allegation might not seem that crazy to the conservatives who are making those arguments, conservative members of congress who are used to speaking to conservative audiences. and in conservative circles, mccarthy doesn't necessarily seem like such a bad guy. they don't get that the rest of this country can see this resemblance, or more to the point, they don't see it as a bad thing. jane mayer at the new yorker today posted some reporting based on her notes from an americans for prost spectator

early weeks of ted cruz's tenure, i think it invites the idea that he might look a little like joe mccarthy comparison there, neil, with the way that mccarthy connected somebody because they had an aclu lawyer 21 years before or the fact that they even had -- somehow he said -- never listed as a communist front, that's nonsense. may have defended communist because they will defend anyone's rights, that's what they do, but to make that sort of weird connection that somehow this guy is a comi, this is what this guy is doing. look at this because the iranians would like to see somebody who wasn't a super hawk coming in as defense secretary, that's somehow makes him the best friend they had over there. look at the look on his face, that sarcastic look he's got. he looks like mccarthy looked the way he does this thing. go ahead. your thoughts. >> well, you know, he -- >> i'm trying to document this. >> he's a harvard trained lawyer, went to princeton, debate champion and you can see him employing those tactics here. i don't think any of this sort of innuendo and sort of guilt by association woul

it reminds us of another senator, joe mccarthy. see if you agree, however. nth after his famous 1954 "see it now" broadcast in which he exposed mccarthy's tactics, he asked him to respond. here mccarthy uses a famous tv review in a communist newspaper to connect him to communism. let's listen. >> but take 30 seconds or so and look further and see who's giving comfort to our inmys. here's from march, all attacking mccarthy and the same issue is mr. murrow's program as one of tonight's best bets on tv. >> well, also that week senator cruz -- this week cruz took another opportunity to say that he may have received -- catch this. may have received $200,000 from of all places north korea. i dome think north korea has $200,000. let's listen. >> it may be that he spoke at grou groups or anti-israel groups. we do not know. he could not even say the $200,000 he received did not cob directly from a foreign government and the question is have you been paid directly by a foreign government i would suggest is every bit as relevant to know if that $200,000 from a foreign g

early weeks of ted cruz's tenure, i think it invites the idea that he might look a little like joe mccarthy>> you know, the comparison there, nia, with the way mccarthy connected somebody because they had an aclu lawyer 21 years before or the fact that they even had -- the aclu was never listed as a communist front. they may have defended communists because the aclu will defend anyone's rights. that's what they do. but to make that weird connection that somehow this guy is a commie, this is what this guy is doing. look at this. because the iranians would like to see somebody who wasn't a super hawk coming in as defense secretary, that somehow makes him the best friend they ever had over there. look at the look on his face, that sarcastic look he's got. he looks like mccarthy looked, the way he does this thing. go ahead. your thoughts. i'm just trying to document this. >> right. he's a harvard trained lawyer. he went to princeton. he's a debate champion, and you can see him employing those sorts of tactics here. i don't think any of this sort of innuendo and sort of guilt by association woul

joe mccarthy was around when dwight eisenhower, a moderate republican, was running the country.lican party is at a moment when it needs to sort of modernize itself ideological. if a guy like ted cruz is the definition of what conservative purity is, that's a troubling development for the party because it's going to keep them in all these critical debates, it's going to keep them from moving to where the rest of the country is. >> ken, i struggle to understand this obsession with the soviet union and communists. we had alan west claiming that 79 members of the house of representatives were communists. we had mitt romney saying during the campaign that america's number one geo political foe was russia tp do they not realize that 1989 happened, that the berlin wall came down, that the soviet union and its satellite states actually collapsed? what's happening here? >> well, what's happening is that it is in many ways a throwback to the cold war era when republicans were really peaking at least from a foreign policy perspective and ronald reagan took a great deal of credit and is giv

. >> this guilt by association reminds us of senator joe mccarthy. >> they see cruz as -- [ inaudiblez, whose father was fortured in castro cuba is seen as charismatic hispanic of princeton and can help the g.o.p. appeal to minorities. cruz made his presence felt in a short time by the senate stap dards. the attack proof of his short-term impact but too early to figure out what will happen in six years whether it hurts or helps. right now, liberals are blasting him. that adds to preexisting buzz of important latino senator. >> bret: what do you think of senator cruz? let me know on twitter. follow me at @brettbaier. update now to a story we have been following on the channel. supreme court says an american service member has the right to challenge for custody of his child who now lives in scotland with her mother. that decision overturns a ruling from lower court and has major implication for many in military. justices agreed to rule on whether the campaign contribution limits are legal. and the constitutionality of a law requiring federal jurysies to reach unanimous verdict and allow

. >>> senate republicans are impersonating joe mccarthy. >>> and the dramatic end to the california manhunt is caught on tape. [ gunshots ] we'll take you back to big bear mountain where major questions need to be answered. good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. no president has ever done what president obama did last night. here is a big reason why president obama laid it all on the line. two out of three americans. the number is 67% of americans. this is the percentage of people in this country who approved of president obama's state of the union speech last night, according to public policy polling. the president delivered a speech filled with major policy initiatives. it was a bold vision for the country can, a good road map. and guess what? americans support these policies. the public is on the side of the president when it comes to climate change. he spoke about taking executive action to reduce carbon pollution. and voters, well, they agreed with him. the president announced a major infrastructure program. i love this one. voters believe that more spending on r

joe mccarthy will find out about it. >> go ahead, charles. >> and have as long a list of endorsements as you want and leave your lying eyes. -- believe your lying eyes. it is less about ideology or any thing is about competence. there's a democratic senator quoted after that disasters day of hearings in which hagel did not even understand what containment of iran and -- he said, "chuck hagel will not be bringing the potato salad to next week's to connect." -- next week's pettitte." he had a performance that was a total embarrassment. you talk about discipline among republicans? the discipline among democrats .s shocking and embarrasseing his performance was so bad that at the end he said, "don't worry, senators, i will not be a decision maker at all, don't worry about me." here is a guy who wants to be secretary of defense who does not want to make decisions. it is the democrats who are embarrassed and no eight. >> i will tell you what is disciplined -- right wing talk radio, right wing websites and publications have gone after chuck hagel on some mythical friends of hamas supporting

♪ >>> ted cruz is channeling joe mccarthy again, and rand paul says the president is being dishonestuester. the big panel takes on the latest right-wing conspiracies. >>> and hollywood is rolling out the red carpet for this year's oscars coming up sunday night. i'll tell you who i think will win it. and why the academy has already made a serious mistake. don't forget you can listen to my radio show on sirius xm radio channel 127 monday through friday, noon to 3:00 p.m. share your thoughts with us on facebook and on twitter u use #edshow. we're coming right back. hi. hi. i'm here to pick up some cacti. it should be under stephens. the verizon share everything plan for small business. get a shareable pool of data... got enough joshua trees? ... on up to 25 devices. so you can spend less time... yea, the golden barrels... managing wireless costs and technology and more time driving your business potential. looks like we're going to need to order more agaves... ah! oh! ow! ... and more bandages. that's powerful. shareable data plus unlimited talk and text. now save $50 on a droid razr ma

next it will be lost china, who promoted the dentist from captain to major, and joe mccarthy will find out about it. chuck hagel wasn't even in the government at the time at benghazi. >> you can have as long a list of endorsements as you want, you can look at that and believe that or believe your lying eyes. is not ideology or history. it is competence ptt the worst performance of any nominee for any high office seen by anybody in this town. there was a democratic senator quoted after that disastrous day of hearings, where hagel did not even understand what containment of iran and -- he said, "chuck hagel will not be bringing the potato salad to next week's picnic." you talk about discipline among republicans? the discipline among democrats is shocking and embarrassing. there are democrats who watched that and know that this guy has no business running the department of defense. his performance was so bad that at the end, he said, "don't worry, senators, i am not going to be a decision maker at all, why worry about me?" here is a guy who wants to be secretary of defense who will be mak

. >> guilt by association remind us of another senator senator joe mccarthy. >> hammer lock on minoroighters and hope to marginal lies him as a right wing rue. he is seen as a charismatic piss tanic graduate of princeton and harvard law. it can help the gop appeal to more niernities. cruz made his presence felt in a short time by u.s. senate standards. in a 6 year term it's hard to tell if it will hurt or help. liberals are blasting him but that's already adding more buzz to another latino senator and republican conservatives. carl cameron, fox news. >>> still ahead do you insist on sitting in the same chair? do you get upset if you can't heather? find out if you are normal or you are not. >> we fight about it all of the time. >> we will tell you about this. they may look like bugs but they could be the next weapon on the war on terror. >> good morning, brian. >> i have to tell you what is coming up on fox and friends. chinese are hacking us the russians searching guam. we will explore the different options we may have. sequestered in a matter of weeks how about shaming the republica

chambers said to buckley in a letter from that time of morris really accomplished most of what joe mccarthyis credited with in terms of useful constructive anti-communist uncredited on the right. rusher was found more suicide subcommittee. he was the lawyer on that committee. mccarthy was still alive. he knew mccarthy and believed that he had been very freely railroaded by the liberal establishment, very much along the lines with stan evans later argued in his 2007, blacklisted by history. rusher in other words was a part, before he came to "national review," was part of a cadre of very hard and professional anti-communist. and that was what really got him into the conservative movement. that caused him to transition from generic republicanism, which included what i described to say just win baby attitude and there's something to be said for that. to an attitude of being willing to lose even a presidential election if it was a constructive sort of loss that one could take pride in all-out goldwater 64, that had planted seeds for the future. rusher did not initially think that we 1948, 1952,

he's been on the job for six weeks and he's already sort of rivaling joe mccarthy.now, in fairness to karl rove, he is telling the republicans what they need to hear. and i suspect republican leaders would like to do it. the problem is you can see like a guy from ted cruz, there's no way to control him. he has this swollen sense of his own importance. and he's made -- look, obviously, he's infur rating the democrats. but even members of his own party are starting to get sore about this. they realize there's nothing they can do to control him. and they are becoming the face of the party. >> but angela, some members of his own party may begin to know it, but marco rubio is praising him as a superstar. look at ted cruz's resume. he believes sharia law is replacing american law. he believes medicaid is unconstitutional. he proposed state nullification of the affordable care act. he even thinks there's a united nation's conspiracy to abolish golf courses. >> well, re verks, sorry i'm laughing, but it doesn't pass the laugh test. at the end of the day, i think we have to

. >>> senator joe mccarthy became notorious or falsely accusing a government official of being communistas eventually cents # sentenced for his attacks and left washington in disgrace. no modern senator would want to act like mccarthy. or so you would think. the new yorker report that before ted cruz came to congress, he was naming names down in texas. in 2010, cruz was talking to a tea partiers about harvard law school. which he and president obama attended. he said president obama was quote would have made a perfect president of harvard law school because quote, there were fewer declared republicans in the faculty when we were there than communists. there was one republican but there were 12 who would say they were markists who believed in the communist overthrowing the united states government, end of quote. wow. he compared president obama to someone who want to overturn a government. and he still is lobbing these attacks now that he is in the senate. >> i think president obama is the most radical president we've ever seen. i think an awful lot of republicans fail to stand for princi

. >> i watched them in those hearings and i saw joe mccarthy. cuting the case, putting up evidence, innuendo, guilt by association. it was an undemocratic system the way john boehner played this. >> it's all the republicans fault. jon: he was talking about texas senator ted cruz. what do you think about that. >> why is it not okay to have chris matthews, but it is okay to have carlie fiorina. if you have one you have the other isn't that fair & balanced? >> the problem with what matthews said there is he compared senator cruz to the late senator joe mccarthy. he accused his associates of being members of the secret police and spies and so on. i don't think cruz is accusing anyone of being on the payroll of the iranian government. there is a huge difference. if chris matthews can't see that he needs to -- >> the point is if you're going to make accusations have the facts to back it up don't say i have the list, or i have -- say exactly what the back up is for the accusations you're making. >> i agree with you alan. jon: media coverage of somethin

he is too busy playing joe mccarthy these days. elizabeth warren is fighting for the people who were screwed by the rich bankers. now, which one do you want on your side? and this is how we have to think, liberals. just think what it would be like if we had 60 senators like elizabeth warren. that's what this election was all about. it's a marathon. it's not a sprint. we have more elections coming up, no doubt about it. but the behavior of the republicans right now, and what they're focused on is not the folks who got the shaft back when the market crashed. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question. will senator warren get congress to hold the big banks accountable for the financial crisis? text "a" for yes, text b for no to 67622. you can always go to our blog and leave a comment at ed.msnbc.com. of course we'll bring results later on in the show. i am joined tonight by martin smith, producer for "frontline." and david cay johnston also with us, a pulitzer prize winning journalist. gentlemen, great

. >> that is a joe mccarthy imitation if i've seen one.rday it continued with jim inhofe of oklahoma on the senate floor. >> isn't it interesting, though, that iran supports chuck hagel's nomination to be secretary of defense? >> dana milbank is a columnist for "the washington post" and howard fine is great. he's editorial director for "the huffington post" and msnbc analyst. thank you for jumping on this. i'm a student of that era. the way he looks, the way he behaves, the throwing out of names and bad associations >> and then just a few days later, senator ted cruz of texas questioned whether hagel had been financed by north korea. votes saying this is really going to weaken chuck hagel. >> smeared him good. >> very difficult job being secretary of defense. that's right. >> and crystal was out doing that. >> who made his job difficult? they've weakened not only chuck hagel, they've weakened the defense department, the united states. >> they did a little hot dog jump -- this used to be sort of sacred to protect our country. and when we ha

. >> you know, i don't often say it and i rarely say it, but there is echoes of joe mccarthy there, strong echoes. your thoughts? how is he supposed to control what the pr agency out there in tehran puts out some day? how does that incriminate him? >> well, that's exactly what i tried to say to senator inhofe. be careful here. because what if a group that you find abhorrent that doesn't match your values endorses you? does that mean you're cozy with them? and iran is being manipulative here. i think they're trying to cause the president problems. these are people who are playing a political propaganda game, and i will say this for john mccain. even though he drives me crazy sometimes, he did step up yesterday, and he said no one should impugn this man's integrity or his patriotism. i admire john for doing that in the heat of this very inappropriate diatribe by senator cruz and senator inhofe. >> i agree with that so much. let me ask you about the neocon people. it seems like the real ideological people who really despise chuck hagel, not on personal grounds, they think he's too dovish on t

. >> that is a joe mccarthy imitation if i've seen one.t continued with jim inhofe of oklahoma on the senate floor. >> isn't it interesting, though, that iran supports chuck hagel's nomination to be secretary of defense? >> dana milbank is a columnist for "the washington post" and howard fine is great. he's editorial director for "the huffington post" and msnbc analyst. thank you for jumping on this. i'm a student of that era. the way he looks, the way he l behaves, the innuendo, the throwing out of names, the throwing out of bad associations to make him look like in the old days a commie, now a terrorist supporter. >> right. and it started with ted cruz. but it seems to have spread out even to the ranking member of the armed services committee. that's one thing. now the guy is approved, and they were all congratulating themselves yesterday before the votes saying this is really going to weaken chuck hagel. >> smeared him good. >> very difficult job being secretary of defense. that's right. >> and crystal was out doing that. >> who made hi

i mean, joe mccarthy had a really good run, and then he was brought down partly by the republican party, by dwight eisenhower. and when you look at the results of the 2012 election, they were throwing all this stuff at obama for four years and it didn't work. and if you listen to the tone of eric cantor today, there was none of that. and that suggests to me that at least some of these guys know that that stuff makes them kooky to a lot of people who might agree with them on some issues but aren't going to go there to overflowing the dictatorship in washington as they put it. a lot of americans don't think we live under a dictatorship, and they're right. >> e.j. dionne, setting the barlow there. hopefully we can agree on that. thank you for being here, e.j. it's great to see you. >> thank you. >>> lots more to come, including a follow-up on michael isikoff's scoop from last night's show. that story has gotten much bigger since then. and eliot spitzer live here with us tonight. please stay with us. [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one

. >> that is a joe mccarthy imitation if i've seen one.with jim inhofe of oklahoma on the senate floor. >> isn't it interesting, though, that iran supports chuck hagel's nomination to be secretary of defense? >> dana milbank is a columnist for the washington post and howard fine is great. he's editorial director for the huffington poet and msnbc analyst. thank you for jumping on this. i'm a student of that era. the way he looks, looks and beh the throwing out of names to make him look like a terrorist supporter. >> it started with ted cruz. it seems to have spread out to the armed service committee. it's one thing. they are all congratulating themselves before the vote saying this is going to weaken chuck hagel. a difficult job being secretary of defense. >> crystal was out doing that. >> who made his job difficult? not only chuck hagel, they weakened the defense department and the united states. >> they did a hot dog jump in the end zone on this, too. howard, this used to be sort of, you know, sacred. we protect our country. we have a sec

you know, i watched him in those hearings a, i saw joe mccarthy, the way he was prosecuting the care he was putting up evidence, inwhen dough, guilt by association i some spokesperson, flack for the ministry of foreign affairs in tehran says he thinks we can do business with this guy mr. than some hawkish neocon is than indictment against him? it turn news an indictment. >> david -- >> i think it is really unfair and i think the senate is going to circle the wagons and say this guy is -- >> quick response, carly. and then we have to go >> i have to say, talking about leadership this is a president who is not afraid use his power, he is not afraid to issue executived orrers when he sees fit i find it stunning, truly, that this president and the democratic party continues to lay all the blame for their failure to achieve anything at the feet of the tea party or ted cruise or whoever the latest villainsome the truth is this man is the president of the united states. he could get immigration reform, as one example, tomorrow if he would step forward and say, i applaud and salute the gang