Oliver Stone's a fool

Let’s play a game: “Which one of these doesn’t belong?”

“Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena.

Go ahead. Take your time. I’ll wait.

Got it? Need another sec. Stalin. Hitler. Mao. McCarthy. Figured out the incongruity yet? Answer after the jump

If you guessed “McCarthy,” you’re the big winner! Let’s see: Stalin killed 20,000,000 or so people during his purges and the famines his economic programs caused; Hitler killed at least 11,000,000 people in the Holocaust, and started the most destructive war the planet has ever see; Mao is arguably the most underrated mass murderer of all time, making the other two look like pikers…between the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and the famines that marked the early Communist regime, Mao is responsible for something like 40,000,000 deaths.

And then there’s Joseph McCarthy who, um, lost some people their jobs. I mean, I’m not going to defend McCarthy’s anti-Communist activities, but to lump him in with these three is astounding. It just goes to show how revered the myth of the Hollywood blacklist is amongst its leftmost members.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see Stone put Stalin, Hitler, and Mao into “context.” “Sure, they were genocidal maniacs who liquidated everyone around them and killed tens of millions of people…but they weren’t all bad.” Should be a good time.