BERNIE SANDERS FACES NPR McCARTHYISM - JUNE 12, 2015

NPR’s 20 million weekly listeners got a taste of what McCarthyism must have been like back in the 1950s.

That’s when people were ruined by insinuation and if that wasn’t enough, it was demanded of them to “name names.”

In other words, they were expected to bring down friends and family members as well.

Some may remember this type of bloodcurdling language from the Wisconsin Senator: “I have here in my hand a list…”

The “list” (of allegedly “known communists”) was meant to terrify people, and it did.

Those tactics came back in style a few days ago when WAMU radio host Diane Rehm used a tone that sounded like a Joe McCarthy witch-hunt.

In an interview with Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders she stated as fact, “Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel.”

Sanders, the junior Senator from Vermont, Jewish and politically Independent, was asked a question that never came up for Obama at NPR.

Rehm’s program begins at WAMU and is broadcast throughout NPR’s 900 affiliate stations. In his Village Voice confessional, “Why I Am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal,” playwright David Mamet scored National Public Radio's “National Palestinian Radio.”

Sanders, therefore, should not have been totally amazed at finding an interview turned into an inquisition.

 “Well no,” Sanders protested. “I’m an American.”

Sanders is a self-described Democratic Socialist. He is running for the White House as a Democrat and is expected to have no chance against Hillary Clinton for the nomination. On Israel, Sanders snubbed 

Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli Prime Minister addressed Congress. 

His platform, it’s been said, would cut aid to Israel. He’s on record as saying Israel “overreacted” to the 30,000 rocket attacks that came from Gaza.

Still, he gets no favors or soft-pedaling from the PLO-favoring Left. Proof that even anti-Israel Jews are still Jewish no matter what side they take.  

But as a young man, Sanders, now 73, spent a few months on a kibbutz.

Was she asking Sanders to “name names?” Was she asking him to denounce “fellow travelers?”
Is that what got him flagged by NPR? Or, forNPR, is friendship with Israel a bridge too far?

Sanders appeared stunned by Rehm’s faulty information. Rehm explained that she found him on a “list.”

Shades of McCarthy? Or did the “list” fall into the hands of Diane Rehm from the new and improved McCarthyism.

"That's some of the nonsense that goes on in the Internet,” Sanders replied, obviously irritated at being ambushed by BDS rumormongering.

Rehm apologized several times during the interview and even after the interview for presenting as fact erroneous material.

But it gets worse.

Rehm persisted, asking Sanders if there are other members of Congress who may have dual citizenship, or is it “part of the fable.” 

Fables linked, no doubt, to the BDS business of spreading falsehoods throughout Social Media…and whatever works to scandalize and oppress.

Was she asking Sanders to “name names?”  Was she asking him to denounce “fellow travelers?”

This does stink of McCarthyism.

“I honestly don’t know [about others],” Sanders hotly replied during his cross-examination.

The experience may have taught Mr. Sanders that being on “their side” is no safe harbor. He should not have been caught by surprise.

But it can work both ways.

As a successful journalist and as a proud Arab-American, Diane Rehm ought to know better than to touch her very own third rail.

Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com