Yes, Nixon nailed Alger Hiss but paid for it with the death of a thousand communist cuts climaxing with Watergate. He also enacted the EPA, OSHA, AMTRAK, did away with the draft and created an "independent" (just never any competition!) Postal Service at the behest of an activist Democrat Congress. I'm reminded that Reagan had a Democrat Congress too. Were it not for that embarrassing Hiss business Nixon would probably be a "progressive" hero.
McCarthy was the victim of the first liberal-communist Borking in my memory. It's had a tremendous impact on me. I wish you'd be specific about some of his FREQUENT incorrect allegations.
Do you think anti-McCarthy luminaries said things the "right" way" How about Drew Pearson and the press in general including "journalist" I.F. Stone (a paid Soviet agent), Senator Scott Lucas, Harold Ickes, Lillian Hellman, Sen. William Benton (whose own lawyer called his anti-McCarthy statement so scurrilous it "was the most libelous document he had ever seen;" to mention a few. If Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha and Zoroaster had dared to stand up to entrenched communists in the U.S. government at that time, they'd have been Borked too.