0 entrepreneur is dell grating spomts to grow his business while still maintaining the high standards of his brand. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. we've all had those moments. when you lost the thing you can't believe you lost. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home... as an american express cardmember you can expect some help. but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership. neither the house and senate are in session, all are locked in closed door governor session meetings this is the kind of day that shouldn't have news in it at all fridays apparently are the new mondays or at least the new day in which there is a lot going on in the news. we have a ton to get to a story in michigan. a very important piece of the puzzle to fix the sequester fell into piece today. and new documents released today show that something we really, really need to be very, very safe may in fact be very dangerous. new coast guard documents revealed on that subject today. and you've got michael moore here tonight for the interview. that is all ahead. it's a really big show. but we need to start in anything he said there is no direct attribution of anything that chuck hagel said at all. but lindsey graham and kelly ayotte wrote to chuck hagel is asking him to explain whether that blogger was right. chuck hagel amazingly responded to that with words be. the nature of the demand was unusual, right? especially for two senators who like to maintain themselves as very serious people on the issue of foreign policy. well, that whole incident followed up the blowup around the friends of hamas thing. the friends of hamas thing i can do far less justice that than comedy central can. behold stephen colbert. >> according to conservative news anger gator, breitbart.com, hagel may have taken money from an organization called friends of hamas. friends of hamas is even worse than it sounds because this organization is so sinister that it doesn't even exist. explain his association with the muslim sisterhood of the traveling pants, or friends of hamas or whatever, an association that they made up. they're demanding that he explain this thing that they made up. they're also demanding that he respond to things that bloggers said about him that sounded awful. but if you are noticing a trend here in the way republican senators are justifying taking this unprecedented action against a cabinet nominee, doing something absolutely that has never been done before in american history, if you are noticing a trend in how they are treating him, allow texas senator ted cruz to crystallize your thinking on this matter. >> we do not know, for example, if he received compensation for giving paid speeches at extreme radical groups. it may be that he spoke at radical or extreme groups or anti-israel groups and accepted financial compensation. we don't know. playing there along with the actors, the footage playing in the background of what is supposed to be the cbs newsroom there along with edward r. murrow looking on, the footage of is joe mccarthy, senator if there wisconsin. and joe mccarthy is famous for stuff like this. >> there are the millions of loyal americans who have voted the democrat ticket, individuals who are just as loyal, who hate communism just as much and love america just as much as the average republican. that's one group. on the other hand, there is that small closely-knit group of administration democrats who are now the complete prisoners and under the complete domination of the bureaucratic economistic frankenstein which they themselves have created. ladies and gentlemen, they shouldn't be called that administration democrat party. to call them democrats is an insult to the millions of loyal american democrats. they shouldn't be called democrats. they should be referred to properly as the commie-crat party. >> speaking in jefferson city, missouri, in 1950. the most famous tactic from mccarthy wasn't just name-calling, it was making oddly specific allegations for which he never produced evidence, but nevertheless demanded that people respond to these allegations because his allegations were so specific that they seemed very true, right? and anybody so accused must explain themselves against his secret. but again, oddly specific damning evidence. he famously told a crowd in wheeling, west virginia in february of 1950, quote, i have here in my hand a list of 205, a list of names that were made known to the secretary of state as being members of the communist party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the state department. 205 names on his list. so it must be true, right? it's not just a round number he made up, roughly 200 names. it's 205 names. that list must have come from somewhere. there must be some basis for this allegation that he is making. it can't just possibly be made up for political effect, right? there is a reason that joe mccarthy's name became something other than just a proper name identifying him as a person. there is a reason we use the term "mccarthyism" as a political tactic. there is a reason people have long been making movies about the danger of this thing. >> there is just one thing, babe. i'd be a lot happier if we could just settle on the number of communists i know there are in the defense department. i mean the way you keep changing the figures on me all the time, it makes me look like some kind of a nut, like an idiot. the boys are even starting to kid me about it. why just yesterday in the cloakroom they said hey, johnny -- >> well, you're going to look like an even bigger idiot if you don't get in there and do exactly what you're told. >> babe. >> who are they writing about all over this country and what are they saying? are they saying are there any communists in the defense department? of course not. they're saying how many communists are there in the defense department. so just stop talking like an expert all of the sudden and get out there and say what you're supposed to say. >> come on, babe. >> i'm sorry, hon. would it really make it easier for you if we just settled on one number? >> yeah. just one real simple number. that would be easy for me to remember. there. >> are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the communist party in the department of defense at this time. >> heinz 57, easy to remember, right? or maybe it was 205 in the state department. and chuck hagel, that $200,000 you received from the government of north korea. >> it is at minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from saudi arabia, came directly from north korea. >> mccarthyism isn't just a generic term for boorish behavior, for boorish right-wing behavior even. mccarthyism is a particular thing. it is making outlandish scandalous allegations against people and despite having no evidence to back up the allegations, but making the allegations really specific, which makes it seem like they must be coming from some factual basis, when in fact you are just making it up. after making the allegation publicly in a big showboaty way, you demand that the person who you have made this allegation clear his name. in ted cruz's home state of texas a couple of years ago, the texas state board of education made an attempt to rewrite the state's textbooks to be more idealogically thinking with the way they think. one of the things they tried to revise was the legacy of one senator joe mccarthy. a board member named don mcelroy, who was leading the charge to have texas textbooks declare evolution to be hooey, he also cheerfully told the "washington monthly" in 2010 that joe mccarthy should be portrayed more 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 event that took place two years ago in texas. at that event a not yet senator ted cruz told the crowd that president obama was the most radical president to ever occupy the oval office. from the piece, ted cruz then went on to assert that president obama would have made a perfect president of harvard law school. the reason is because there were fewer declared republicans in that community than there were communists. there was one republican, but there were 12 who would say they were marxists, who believed in the communists overthrowing the united states government. 12 exactly. you sure it was exactly 12, sir? 12 implies you counted an it wasn't 11 and it wasn't 13, it was 12. spokesman for harvard law school gave this comment. we are puzzled by the senator's assertions as we are unaware of any basis for them. charles fried also told jane mayer today, "i have not taken a poll, but i would be surprised if there were any members of the faculty who believed in the communists overthrowing the u.s. government." still, though, it sounds good, particularly when you use that really specific number. i mean, those commies can deny it, but clearly, he's got the fact. he's got a list of 12. jane mayer joins us next. so i d. so i d. i used to have bad dreams, but not anymore. 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