Good Night, and Good Luck

Just saw this movie today, and my first reaction is: Well done, George Clooney. It's an excellent movie, in my opinion.

My secondary reaction is not one of particular pride. Good Night and Good Luck is, of course, about CBS anchor Edward Murrow and his campaign against McCarthyism. Of course, it irritated me on some level, because we were fighting against fascism while bordering on it at home. It's not a particular point of pride for any American (I'm certain that there are exceptions, but I think the majority of people today agree that McCarthyism = not great). That was expected, though: I don't expect to be filled with pride as an American from more or less anything during that time.

But what I found really unsettling about it was that, if you picked up the basic plot of that era, changed the names and the specifics a bit, it's today. Senator McCarthy has multiplied and moved up in power (Bush, any number of senators and representatives) and communism has been replaced by the still-undefined 'terrorism' or 'extremism'. It's even less public now, but there's still a witch-hunt going on.

I'm trying to think of who our Ed Murrow is, though, and coming up short. We've got more bad guys than they had, and it seems we have no good guys.