McCarthyism Redux

“With each new attack on a mosque, each new anti-Muslim slur by a prominent politician or pundit, each new poll showing that large swaths of Americans think President Obama is lying about his faith, it becomes clearer that we are in the midst of a national psychosis: the worst spasm of paranoia and bigotry of the post-Cold War age. The interesting question is: Why now?” Political writer Peter Beinart looks at national security scares old and new. “The awful irony, of course, is that persecuting Muslims at home actually endangers American security by fueling al Qaeda recruitment, just as the red scares of the early and mid-20th century handed propaganda victories to the USSR.”