This coming Wednesday, May 2, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of a venal and cowardly man, a true antihero of the 20th century.
Evil individuals are often unfairly called "cowards," but this particular one snugly fits the bill. Furthermore, his influence on American life in his time and ours has been so marked as to deserve the suffix "-ism" after his name.
But was the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph Raymond McCarthy, really responsible for McCarthyism? Or is this diabolical ideology of fear ever-present in America's air, waiting to be bottled, labeled with stars and stripes, and sold on the cheap to a God-fearing nation?