The witch hunt has begun.

Channeling Joseph McCarthy, one of Alabama's Republican congressmen declared Thursday that no fewer than 17 socialists are roaming the corridors of the House of Representatives.

"Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists," said Rep. Spencer Bachus at a Birmingham breakfast. When asked to clarify his comments, he said he knows of 17 socialist House members, The Birmingham News reported.

This statement lets us know two things about Bachus: He believes there are socialist members of Congress, and he doesn't think socialism is very good.

But, wanting to keep the big secret to himself, he didn't give any names. So, it's time to dust off the old shoe leather and do some investigative reporting. Where can we find a group of 17 socialists on Capitol Hill seeking to undermine the American way? I did some gumshoe digging through congressional groups and found two subcommittees with exactly 17 members. Coincidence?

The first is the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry, a division of the Agriculture Committee. But one of the members is Mike Rogers, one of Bachus's fellow Republicans from Alabama, and it's unlikely that Bachus would want to implicate a like-minded politician. So scratch that.

The other one I found was the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, part of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Now we're talking. No chickens and yogurt for these 17 policymakers; we're talking ballistic missiles and heavy-armor tanks, just the sort of thing a group of socialists would want to mess with. But unfortunately, a Google News search for "Subcommittee on Homeland Security + socialists" returns hardly anything. Seeing as that is the extent of my investigative capabilities, I was resigned.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the 17 socialists whom Bachus knows about are interspersed in clandestine ways among Congress's 435 House members. Well, 434 -- assuming that Bachus, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, does not suspect himself of being a socialist.

Or does he? A staple of socialism is controlling the media and the flow of information. The more censorship, the better for socialist leaders wanting to shape public opinion. Knowing that, take a look at Bachus's website, similar to the other websites kept by all members of Congress. When I tried to find out Bachus's recent committee news -- in "Committee News" under the "Press Room" tab -- I was greeted with this charming message:

"Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server."

Now, hold on to your subpoenas, Justice Department officials. That broken link appears to lead not to Bachus's main page, but instead to something called "republicans.financialservices.house.gov." Now all we have to do is figure out who those guys are, and we're on our way to finding some answers.