Same Old Joe

The bad old days of Joe McCarthy were bad enough to live through, but somehow they seemed even worse in retrospect last week when Joe's familiar sneer and snarl found their way back into the news and onto TV screens. In the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room, McCarthy glared balefully at New Jersey's able William J. Brennan, appointed by Ike to the Supreme Court last fall (TIME, Oct. 8) and now up for Senate confirmation. "Do you approve of congressional investigations and exposure of the Communist conspiracy setup?" asked Joe. Replied Brennan (who, while a justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, had incurred Joe's hostility by referring to "Salem witch hunts" in public speeches): "Not only do I approve, Senator, but personally I cannot think of a more important or vital objective of its committee investigations than that of rooting out subversives in government."

Brennan's soft answer turned away no wrath: still determined to fight Brennan's Senate confirmation, McCarthy ranted away trying to make it appear that Roman Catholic Brennan was soft on Communism. Clasping his hands on the table in front 'of him, Brennan answered Joe's questions calmly. But even when Joe gave it up as a bad job, he could still fall back on the explanation he had made at the hearing's start: "I don't have any high hopes of being successful in opposition to Justice Brennan's nomination. I have great fear that the left wing--and I emphasize the left-wing Democrats--and the so-called modern Republicans--just what that means I don't know, but the modern Republicans--will roll over and play dead and will approve his nomination."

But unlike in the bad old days, the good old American public just couldn't have cared less.

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