Okay, not minutes after I posted the Wal-Mart thing do I have something else to add.

Just as the new movie about Edward R. Murrow’s brave stand against nut-job Joseph McCarthy is hitting theaters comes this fun post by Aaron Swartz. I call it “fun” only because it’s fun when people make the connections like this that shed important light on dangerous people in power. And O’Reilly is a dangerous person in power if only because he influences so many minds with his bile.

The comparisons between McCarthy and O’Reilly that Aaron offers are not exactly comparing apples to apples or Twinkies to Twinkies. But you can see the connection, and the similarity.

I did not know much about Edward R. Murrow until college. In our first year at B.U.’s College of Communication, we freshmen had to all take one huge class together in an auditorium. It was a crash-course on the history of media. I remember three things from that course:

1) The fact that Marconi invented the radio.

2) The Lyndon B. Johnson/anti-war ad with the little flower-collecting girl getting blown up in a nuclear blast. (Go here to see it. Click on one of the DAISY feeds.)

3) The entire Joseph McCarthy episode of See It Now. (Go here to listen to Walter Cronkite’s NPR commentary from last year, the 50th anniversary of the famous See It Now episode.)

Watching the See It Now episode gave me chills because, while I’m sure I got some schooling on McCarthy in high school, it took this episode of this show to demonstrate to me how much like our Communistic “enemy” we were willing to become in the fight to destroy them. And here we are, 50 years later, history repeating itself, with terror replacing Communism, with evil schemers like McCarthy being replaced by W and his little friends who believe we need to keep freedom from Americans so we can continue to fight for freedom across the globe, with real journalists like Murrow being replaced with repugnant pseudo-journalists like O’Reilly. Who are these people?

I know there were hack journalists back in the ’50s, and that McCarthy was not the only American leader who was supporting the anti-Communist inquisition, but at least someone finally stood up. Murrow’s show was the pivot for America shaking off the haze of fear. Who will do that now? Who will wake us up and allow students 36 years from now to see an exhibit of true bravery that brought some sanity back to America? I hope someone comes forward soon!