By Jeff Flake, a Republican U.S. senator from Arizona. From the Washington Post today.
As I contemplate the Trump presidency, I cannot help but think of Joseph Welch.
On June 9, 1954, during the Army-McCarthy hearings, Welch, who was the chief counsel for the Army, famously asked the committee chairman if he might speak on a point of personal privilege. What he said that day was so profound that it has become enshrined as a pivotal moment in defense of American values against those who would lay waste to them. Welch was the son of a small prairie town in northwest Iowa, and the plaintive quality of his flat Midwestern accent is burned into American history. After asking Sen. Joseph McCarthy for his attention and telling him to listen with both ears, Welch spoke:
“Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.”
And then, in words that today echo from his time to ours, Welch delivered the coup de grace: “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
The moral power of Welch’s words ended McCarthy’s rampage on American values, and effectively his career as well.
The rest can be read here. Sometimes enough nonsense is enough.
The Bernard Olcott Story 