When Ann Coulter expressed admiration for Joe McCarthy a little while back, I was taken aback, but only for as long as it took me to remember that I was listening to Ann Coulter.

What has surprised me, however, is that more and more right-wingers seem to be adopting Tail Gunner Joe as their new iconic hero. I seem to be hearing his name more often nowadays, and seeing it referenced as you can see on the t-shirt of the tea-bagger at right.

You know, I used to think that these people simply didn’t understand what they were talking about, that maybe they though McCarthy was a true-blooded American patriot who was unjustly smeared.

But more and more I am getting the impression that these people know exactly what McCartyism was all about and that is why they approve of the man. And that is just plain, downright scary.

So much of what the right wing has come to stand by recently smacks so much of what McCarthy did, I can see these people admiring all of his worst qualities. The baseless accusations as a means of political bullying, the destroying of the lives of people whose politics they disagree with, the outright fabrication of evidence and smears, the fearmongering and appeal to the worst instincts of the people–all of these are the new “in” techniques which so many on the right wing today have adopted as their own.

It may not be a new era of McCarthyism yet, but there is a growing number on the right who clearly long for those days to return.