IT'S NOT EXACTLY McCARTHYISM, BUT IT IS INSIDIOUS

You may have seen this:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) went after the Obama administration's handling of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation in a radio interview Thursday -- and along the way he claimed that Muslim Brotherhood members are in the administration and influencing its decisions.

"It's very clear to everybody but this administration that radical Islam is at war against us," Gohmert told WND Radio "And I'm hoping either this administration will wake up or a new one will come in at the next election before irreparable damage is done. Because radical Islam is at war with us. Thank God for the moderates who don't approve of what's being done. But this administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America."

(Emphasis added.)

Steve Benen says, "This is effectively what 21st-century McCarthyism looks like." Jonathan Bernstein accuses Gohmert of taking a "McCarthyite route."

I wouldn't call this McCarthyism -- not exactly. It's a bit different from the kind of thing Tailgunner Joe did. But it is reprehensible and dangerous.

McCarthy's accusations were taken very seriously by people with power. They could ruin lives. I very doubt that anyone is going to be fired from a job and rendered unemployable because of what Gohmert is saying.

The danger in this case is different. Powerful Republicans don't act on wild accusations of this kind by the likes of Gohmert (or Michele Bachmann), and occasionally offer tut-tutting condemnations, but the party takes full advantage of the fear stoked by this kind of verbal bomb-throwing.

This talk is the downmarket version of the way mainstream Republicans criticize the president, Democrats, and liberals -- notice how rapidly the Boston Marathon bombing has been turned into an Obama administration failure by Republicans, who didn't even pause briefly to treat the incident as one in which Americans ought to feel united. Gohmert is just cranking that message up to 11, and peddling his version to the more rabid members of the GOP base -- thus keeping those voters' fear and anger stoked, and solidifying their loyalty to conservative Republicanism.

If you're a "respectable" Republican, you think Gohmert is over the top, but you nod in agreement when the more responsible-sounding Lindsey Graham criticizes the White House on Sunday talk shows; to you, that's the "real" GOP. But if you're a World Net Daily fan, you need more than Graham -- and wen you hear Gohmert on WND Radio, you get what seems like the raw, angry version of the Graham message, and your party loyalty is reinforced.

So Gohmert and Bachmann aren't embarrassments to the party. They ensure that the party can effectively service all right-wing markets.