Free Republic

In "The Age of Anxiety," Haynes Johnson makes a depressing observation: "Although McCarthy and the leading players of his time… have long since passed from the scene, McCarthyism remains a story without an ending." ...McCarthyism... has become an all-purpose incantation, referring to everything from genuine political repression to folks not buying a singer's records.... Calling someone a McCarthyite has become a form of McCarthyism. ...Mr. Johnson ignores the genuine threat that communist spies posed to the U.S.; he elides the justified anticommunist efforts of the 1930s and 1940s with the abuses of McCarthyism; and he compares McCarthyism with modern-day conservatism....