[x]

Buchanan makes a much better case for McCarthy than Coulter, but he doesn't overcome the suspicion that McCarthy made reckless claims and ultimately hurt the anti-communist cause at home and abroad. A stilletto can do some of the work a bludgeon can with fewer unwanted side-effects.

The broader question that goes far beyond McCarthy is how deep political controversies and demands for orthodoxy should enter into our private lives. It may be that all of the internal security and communist hunting measures were justified in the 1940s and 1950s but just what the boundaries between dissent and disloyalty are is always a living and hotly debated question, now as well as then. I get the feeling Coulter is riding high on the emotions of the moment and not looking at the deeper problems and consequences that highly politicized ages bring with them.

[DPB101]

McCarthy is known for "witchhunts" only because he was a conservative.

In 1934, the McCormack/Dickstein committee went after conservatives by claiming those opposed to FDR were planning an armed "putsch" to undo the New Deal.

On Feb.11, 1941, Dickstein (D-NY) took to the floor of the House and declared:

One hundred and ten fascist organizations in the United States have had, and have now the key to the back door of the Un-American Activities Committee!

Dickstein, by the way, was a Soviet spy.

[TheDon]

..."but he doesn't overcome the suspicion that McCarthy made reckless claims and ultimately hurt the anti-communist cause at home and abroad."

Get examples? (tm)

"I get the feeling Coulter is riding high on the emotions of the moment and not looking at the deeper problems and consequences that highly politicized ages bring with them."

If you read "Treason" you can't help but say she is looking at the "deeper problems" and the "consequences".