The First Tactic That Mccarthy Uses in His Speech Is to Attack Edward Murrow Ad Hominem

The first tactic that McCarthy uses in his speech is to attack Edward Murrow ad hominem specifically by associations and assumptions. In the first line of McCarthy’s speech, he states, “Good evening. Mr. Edward R. Murrow, Educational Director of the Columbia Broadcasting System, devoted his program to an attack on the work of the United States Senate Investigating Committee, and on me personally as its chairman. Now over the past four years he has made repeated attacks upon me and those fighting Communists.” McCarthy immediately creates a division between himself and Mr. Murrow; Mr. Murrow is portrayed as an attacker who is interrupting the good work of Mr. McCarthy. Underneath the words is a simple association, McCarthy is fighting communists and protecting the country, therefore Mr. Murrow through his assaults is preventing McCarthy from continuing his crusade. This is clearly an ad hominem attack. Rather the opening of the speech is designed to create a negative emotional response and association to Mr. Murrow himself, not his view. The association and attack is continued in the next paragraph of the speech when McCarthy comments, “Now, Mr. Murrow, by his own admission, was a member of the IWW (that's the Industrial Workers of the World), a terrorist organization cited as subversive by an attorney general of the United States, who stated that it was an organization which seeks, and I quote: "to alter the government of the United States by unconstitutional means." McCarthy slanders and attacks Murrow by associating him with a terrorist group and then using an appeal to ethos to validate the risk posed by Murrow and other members of this group. He uses this ad hominem attack not only to assault Murrow’s person, but also to strengthen the divide he is creating between Murrow and himself. McCarthy uses prejudicial language to portray himself as the sole force against the communists and at the same time belittle Murrow and depict him as a rogue terrorist. The ad hominem attack continues through to the very end of the speech. Towards the end, McCarthy states, “Then there's the book by Harold Laski, admittedly the greatest Communist propagandist of our time in England. In his book Reflections on the Revolution of Our Times he dedicates the book to "my friends E. R. Murrow and Latham Tichener, with affection." Now, I am perfectly willing to let the American people decide who's giving comfort to our enemies.” Again, McCarthy follows his previous blueprint. His association of Murrow with such a noted communist is an example of an appeal to ethos used to justify the fact that Murrow was in association with some of the top communists in the world. This is again an ad hominem attack on Murrow’s character and not his argument and it is used to distinguish between the portrayed communist Murrow and the savior McCarthy. The association drawn between Murrow and Laski also furthers the divide McCarthy creates between himself and Murrow. It reinforces the assumption that McCarthy creates throughout his speech that Murrow is associated with communist terrorists and that McCarthy is the sole force in America that is opposed to these people. This crafted association demonstrates the manner in which McCarthy attacks Murrow ad hominem.