A notorious boogieman for the left-wing in USA. The guy who supposedly created a Red Scare witch hunt proclaiming that he knew about various communists in various public institutions in USA. But largely had no evidence and mainly just used his power in the government to call in people he suspected to accuse them publicly in front of cameras and calling for their firings. The doc shows that he was seen as a joker from the start. He was a media darling and quite a name, yet seen as foolish and clownish. Even the Republican president and half of the senators in his party were against him at the end. And soon after he died from his alcoholism.
The documentary goes over his youth for a few minutes and his rise to political power. He adored media attention and political fights and married his young and very attractive secretary when he became truly notorious. But he was always a drunkard and hard to take seriously for many people as he drank during the day and some of his interview performances in front of the camera were embarrassing for this reason. The censure vote against him became a huge media deal. And once it passed with support from both parties the media started to ignore him. Eisenhower disliked him so much that he was the only senator not invited to the White House for a Christmas dinner even though they were both Republicans. But while Eisenhower was an army man McCarthy was attacking the army and the supposed communist spies there.
I actually think this documentary is very fair towards him and fairly neutral as far as I can judge it. Obviously USA was in fact overrun with communist spies - we know this now. But McCarthy didn't catch any of them and didn't reveal any spying or anyone working for USSR or China according to this documentary. So overall it seems like he actually was hurtful to his own cause and actually helped communists in USA as other accusations now seemed less serious too. I would say it feels a bit hollow. Much of it is about his personal life not the Red Scare. So you learn a lot about the man and small personal details yet not enough about politics, media, the witch hunt. The pundits invited to comment on the story are actually very fair and neutral too, but they just repeat the main claims without adding anything to the documentary. Overall it's just clear the guy was alcoholic no matter what he did or didn't do. And it's clear he lacked evidence and mainly used his hearings to gain media attention. He was even friendly towards the people he accused when not on camera. So it's clear he was just calling them out for being horrible communists ruining USA without actually meaning it. But I do think it's a shame the documentary never looks into his wins no matter how small they may have been. Maybe there weren't any? But I doubt it's true. Even by accident you are bound to at times find guilty people.
