Senator Joseph McCarthy

These days, his ilk can now be mostly found on hate talk radio, no longer at the highest levels of government.

Paranoiya at its scariest given the time period (post WW2). After we learned the truth about Russia, communism and the Cold War had only just begun. McCarthy got just a lil carried away, ya think? I know he was trying to be a good American, but still...

Communists!! I see them everywhere!! Do the American thing and turn your neighbor in. Goddamn pinkos threatening our liberty!!! - Couple of side notes. A). Didn't the communist nation of russia help us out back in ww2. B). Aren't you threatening the liberty of others by holding a witch hunt? If we truely free, then why can't an American chose to follow the communist idealogy on a personal level?

A truly reckless scumbag who exploited the anti-Communist hysteria prevalent in knucklehead America in those unenlightened times, and in doing so, destroyed the careers and homelives of countless innocent people. A lying sack of crap who changed the details of his fictions to suit the situation. As it turns out, those supposedly hundreds of Communists in the State Department were nothing more than paranoid fantasies in the warped, alcoholic and demented turdbrain of this enemy of America. What's even more pathetic, and even laughable, that there's still rightwing droolers out there who feel he was right on the money and was railroaded out of office. Just goes to show you, these rightwingers are clueless sh*t for brains who don't let facts get in the way of their mutant opinions.

'Blacklisted by History' by  M. Stanton Evans exonerates McCarthy...in other words, he was framed.

This is hilarious.  None of the posters giving him an obnoxious were alive when he was in power from 1953 to 1955.  How do they know?  I was about eleven at the time.  I remember.  He had lots of support.  The lefto's didn't like him but that's a given.

Maniacal may be a better description than obnoxious. He wanted attention and control and would seek any means to obtain it. He found it through the Cold War.

Love the apologists here. . .witch-hunting, lying, fear-mongering zealots who know nothing of freedom are highly obnoxious. . .Marge Schott called and she wants her philosophy back. . .

McCarthy was right, but he took it way too far. Hollyweird and some in the Democrat party today has the same problem.....their extreme leftists. Michael Moore and Howard Dean and John Murtha come to mind. And these people are taking it way too far as well!!! They have long ago crossed the line from just having a difference of opinion, to out and out America bashing. They wouldnt know how to stand by their political opponents for the good of the country, if their lives depended on it. Hollywierd is giving Oscars, not for their acting skills, but for their extreme politcal beliefs. The Democrats are rewarding their own, not for their politcal skills, but for their extreme views. Regretably, this is one of the effects of living in a free society. You have to be exposed to EVERYONES nonsense. Including mine....lol

McCarthy was certainly obnoxious when he'd ask questions then constantly interrupt the witness when the answer wasn't to his liking. Famous also for interrupting the chair of any hearding with points of order, essentially shouting everyone else down. Obnoxious in the sense that he would look for any weakness possible to exploit, no matter how sleazy, which obviously backfired in his confrontation with Welch. Yes, obnoxious fits nicely.