An amazing find:

Eric Alterman discovers an eerie parallel with two statements, one by William Kristol, and another from years ago by Irving Kristol. Here is the breakdown:

William Kristol today		Irving Kristol during the McCarthy era
But		For there is one thing that
the American people,		the American people
whatever their doubts about aspects of Bush’s foreign policy,
know		know
that		about
Bush		Senator McCarthy
		;he, like them,
is		is
serious about fighting terrorists and terrorist states that mean America harm.		unequivocally anti-Communist.
About		About
Bush’s Democratic critics,		the spokesmen for American liberalism,
		they feel
they know no such thing.		they know no such thing.

Alterman writes,

"This is truly amazing. It explicitly links the Neocons’ exploitation of the threat of terrorism to that no-good drunken bum, Joe McCarthy, and his use of the charge of “Commie” to ruin lives on a whim through a deliberately stoked mass hysteria. I think there is a great deal of this going on right now, but even I would have been reluctant to go so far. But there it is."

UPDATE: Commentary on this is also available at Tapped, and by Mark A. R. Kleiman.

posted by Quiddity at 7/24/2003 01:08:00 PM