Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is an informative, well documented and well written book that is LONG overdue. It is eminently readable for such a long tome and manages to hold the reader's attention from the very start where Evans describes his efforts to obtain records from the National Archives, the Senate, local newspapers in Wheeling, West Virginia as well as a whole assortment of primary sources necessary to examine the history of this period. As quickly becomes evident: most of the germane records of great importance during the McCarthy era have gone missing leading us into an authoritative examination of the McCarthy period with a main emphasis being finding primary sources on McCarthy, his cases and the Cold War in general. Evans book is an attempt to discover the real story of Joe McCarthy removing him from the mists of fable and recycled error. From the outset we need to get one thing straight - Joe McCarthy was a patriot. A patriot who was willing to speak truth to power, and for that Joe McCarthy was destroyed by the left. He has been ruthlessly vilified for sixty years, his name synonymous with evil and treachery. McCarthy gave up his reputation, and arguably his life, as the price for speaking the truth. And seldom is so high a price exacted for honesty integrity and the willingness to speak the truth. This book provides exhaustive documentation proving once and for all that McCarthy was correct, more, that McCarthy was an American patriot. Today's children (by that I include all who identify themselves as liberal) are in perpetual adolescent rebellion against "the man" or, as they so fondly like to describe it, "the establishment." They need a bogyman against which they can play out their morality play in which they are the heroes. But, unlike heroes of the past, our current day warrior sacrifices nothing and gains everything in this Faustian bargain. They gain social approval and a sense of moral superiority that swamps all reason and turns right into wrong and wrong into right. Yep, these folks are heroes all right. Joe McCarthy served as their foil in their ongoing morality play. They were, and continue to be willing to destroy a good man in order to provide themselves with a useful foil where they are magically transformed into the apotheosis of good. As a general rule, in the interest of saving time, to avoid confusion and to keep one's mind clear and lucid, it is nearly always best to assume that whatever a liberal says contains a lie and more likely a whole assortment of lies. That's not to say what they say often does not contain at least a kernel of truth, but rather what they say is calculated to deceive. Liberals trade in lies and the most you can expect from them is half-truths. Their attacks on Joe McCarthy however were made up out of whole cloth and through the monotony of endless repetition from every single cultural institution controlled by the left they managed to sell the ugliest lie of all - McCarthyism. Now you almost certainly think I am exaggerating. Let me assure you: I am not! Are there well intentioned liberals whose stock in trade is not deception? Of course there are! You have the "fashionable" liberal - the useful idiot if you will - a sad lackluster individual who refuses to think for himself and is accustomed to taking the well worn paths of least resistance. And there are other varieties of liberals who do not consciously trade in deceit but who invariably are themselves deceived. Now it has recently become fashionable for different stripes of liberals to describe themselves as patriots who love our country and its institutions. But their barely concealed contempt for ordinary Americans and their beliefs and traditions reveals an entirely different story. Liberals, in addition to being deceitful , are haters. And in order to justify their contempt and hatred they adopt crackpot ideas that are impervious to reason. You find them hanging out at the most vicious anti-American web sites. The destruction of Joe McCarthy and the lies that were told about him are important for one very salient reason: it has served as the template for destroying all who would dare oppose the leftist agenda. Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas were both attacked using the same tactics employed against Joe McCarthy. Evans in this well researched irrefutable book puts a lie to all the slander against this great American patriot and hero. Five stars for this long overdue book.