Exhuming McCarthyism
Over at The Daily Beast, Peter "Fighting Faith" Beinart has a piece up declaiming "The New McCarthyism," which apparently is anti-Muslim bigotry mixed with foreign policy isolationism (you try to read it). Russ Smith gives it the raspberry it deserves, and for some epic pundit-on-pundit violence, I recommend Andrew Ferguson.
I come here not to bury Peter Beinart, but to marvel at the enduring power of "The New McCarthyism" as a term of oppobrium. Here's a quick list of topics recently described using exactly that phrase:
* The "the dramatic recent escalation of reckless anti-Google rhetoric" (Lauren Weinstein, September 2010)
* "Mass purges" by the Services Employee International Union (Elaine Monney and Jessica Garcia, San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 2010)
* Rep. Henry Waxman requesting that CEOs explain projected health care cost increases to Congress (Erick Erickson, RedState.com, March 2010)
* NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suggesting that Rush Limbaugh would not be allowed to purchase a minority stake in the St. Louis Rams (Hugh Hewitt, Townhall.com, October 2009)
* Glenn Beck criticizing Cass Sunstein using out-of-context information and insinuations (John V. Santore, Media Matters, September 2009)
* Opposition to Obamacare, criticism of Dr. John Holdren, and skepticism of climate change (Dr. Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute, September 2009)
* The State Department denying a visa for Tariq Ramadan (Daphne Eviatar, The Washington Independent, March 2009)
* Rep. Barney Frank asking for details on bonuses to AIG executives (Rush Limbaugh, March 2009)
* Karl Rove attacking liberals "as being therapists" (E.J. Dionne, Washington Post, June 2005)
* CNN's Eason Jordan resigning under public pressure after claiming journalists were being "targeted" by coalition forces in Iraq (Jack Lessenberry, Metro Times, February 2005)
* The "witch hunt" against Ward Churchill (David Walsh, World Socialist Web Site, February 2005)
You know, it wasn't any more convincing in the original Georgian.
