Writer John McManus has a terrific piece about who is perhaps the most unfairly maligned man in American history, Joe McCarthy.  McManus makes the case that McCarthy was correct: There was communist infiltration in the U.S. government in the 1950s.  And, of course, not only is this true, but now those individuals get to run for the presidency. 

But here’s how McManus frames it:

In his 1983 book, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, University of Texas history professor David Oshinsky joined in the cabal determined to besmirch the life and work of the Wisconsin senator. McCarthy passed away in 1957, but Oshinsky and a veritable horde of communist and leftist sympathizers, all McCarthy haters to the core, has continually felt a need to bury him year after interminable year. The truth about the man and his work, as Mr. Evans has superbly and painstakingly documented in 664 pages, is that McCarthy was correct about government agencies being riddled with communists and their allies. And he courageously went to work to expose them.

Among this nation’s many liberals and leftists, it is the equivalent of dogma that rehabilitation of McCarthy must not be permitted. So, the always reliably anti-McCarthy New York Times turned to one of the more well-known critics of the senator to downplay the importance of the Evans book. Rather than a review of this stunning defense of the senator (isn’t the newspaper’s weekly section labeled "The New York Times Book Review" supposed to present reviews?), Oshinsky’s latest smear of McCarthy appears as an "Essay."

Read the rest here.