Blacklisted by History?

That’s the claim made about Senator Joe McCarthy in a book by M. Stanton Evans. Ann Coulter, who has also defended McCarthy, is all giddy about the book since it provides the "pretense of scholarly throat-clearing and objectivity" that the Los Angeles Times pointed out was missing in her defense of McCarthy.

Coulter is missing the point of the L.A. Times critique. Even if your unjustified assertions and accusations happen to be right, that doesn’t justify the unjustified assertions and accusations. Evans, by producing a scholarly work, doesn’t justify your washer woman approach to history.

As for Evans’ book, it’s hard to say because I haven’t read the book although I am tempted to do so. My hesitation is based upon the book descriptions I’ve read which lead me to suspect that the book primarily says (1) the Communist threat in the late 1940s and early 1950s was really something to be concerned about and (2) McCarthy has been unjustly accused of a lot of things.

Neither of these two positions particularly surprises me. As a matter of fact, I probably could have you told you that would be the case.

Anyone familiar with the history of the period could see that Soviet Communism was a real threat especially with a Western Europe still prostrate after WW II.

Anyone familiar with human nature knows that once a villain, justly or unjustly, becomes identified, he gets the blame for all kinds of things. I’m surprised McCarthy wasn’t accused of killing Cock Robin as well all the other stuff flung in his direction.

Neither of these two things are the issue. The issue is whether McCarthy, in trying to offset the Communist threat, didn’t become by virtue of the methods he used, a bigger threat to American liberties than the Communists he was so worried about.

Does this sound familiar? Hasn’t the Bush administration been a greater threat to American liberties than all the Islamo-Fascists ever spawned?

If there is a fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives, it may well be that Liberals are willing to trade security for liberty while Conservatives are willing to trade liberty for security.