As chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations from 1953 to 1954, Senator Joe McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, conducted numerous interrogations in the name of exposing communist infiltration everywhere and anywhere. His badgering took place both behind the scenes and in front of the cameras.
But at one point, McCarthy himself was chastised, and on national television no less. During the 36 days of the Army-McCarthy hearings — when McCarthy temporarily stepped down as chairman — Joseph Welch, special counsel for the Army, confronted McCarthy, who would be formally censured later that year by the Senate: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?," he asked him. "Have you left no sense of decency?" The answer was pretty obvious.