Re: Why Richard Hofstadter Is StillWorthReadingbutNotforthe Reasons the Critics Have in Mind
On Oct 17, 2006, at 6:13 PM, Jesse Lemisch wrote:
And, though I haven’t followed this thread completely, I’m not sure
that the point has been made that “McCarthyism” is in some sense a misnomer.
given the general anti-Communist hysteria going back to Harry Truman and
others. The term “McCarthyism” lets lots of Democrats and liberals off the
hook. A Whitney Griswold at Yale, McGeorge Bundy at Harvard, Hutchins at the University of Chicago — many such contributed to what has been called McCarthyism.
Finally something we can agree on. In fact, McCarthy made
“respectable” anti-Communists nervous, because his lunacy was
discrediting their position. Of course, Jonah Goldberg & Ann Coulter
want to rehabilitate him.
Doug