On his Monday radio program, conservative talker Hugh Hewitt confronted MSNBC’s “Distrupt” host Karen Finney over comparing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s mission to stop Obamacare to Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy’s past mission to root out Communists in the U.S. government, repeatedly putting Finney on the defense by asking whether or not Communists had infiltrated the government, particularly accused Soviet spy Alger Hiss.
“In case you haven’t heard, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a man on a mission,” Finney said on her Saturday program. “He wants to take away your health care, even if that means bringing down our government, or a war within the GOP. But Cruz’s rhetoric isn’t just detrimental to his party. It’s contributing to a broader environment of paranoia that could have very real consequences for our democracy. The fear-stoking is reminiscent of another senator, a man from Wisconsin on his own mission. He also wanted to take his country back. Then, it was from the Communists who had supposedly infiltrated it. His name, of course? Joe McCarthy. And while Cruz’s mission this time around might be different, the rhetoric sounds eerily the same.”
Listen:
HEWITT: Karen, this is astonishing. You can’t bring yourself to say Alger Hiss was a Communist spy.
FINNEY: Sure.
HEWITT: What?
FINNEY: That’s not the point.
HEWITT: Oh, I know that.
FINNEY: And you know it.
HEWITT: But you can’t say it. It’s like watching the Fonz say “I was wrong.”
FINNEY: But that’s not the point and you know it.
HEWITT: I know that. I know it’s not your point. I’m just amazed.
FINNEY: (Click)
Finney is not the only MSNBC host to level the charge against Cruz. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews has done so and has even said he looks and speaks similar to McCarthy.