USA Today editorialized this week against the rank McCarthyism of Rep. Michele Bachmann and several of her colleagues.  PFAW’s Right Wing Watch has covered the representatives’ letter, which cited professional Islamophobe Frank Gaffney as it sounded the alarm about Muslim Brotherhood penetration of the US government and urged an investigation of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Says USA Today:

Their letter is a masterpiece of innuendo. Abedin, a U.S.-born Muslim married to a Jewish ex-congressman, is suspect because she "has three family members … connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations."

Even the innuendo is thin: Pressed for proof, Bachmann wrote that a law review article said Abedin’s father, who died when his daughter was a teenager, founded an institute that had the "support" of a man who headed another group that was "aligned" with the Brotherhood. This is two decades and several degrees of separation from Abedin in 2012, but that’s how a guilt-by-association smear works. Like all cheap magic, it loses its power once you know the trick.

Well put, but one small quibble: the editorial was headlined “Bachmann’s Islamist scare relaunches McCarthyism.” In fact, right-wing McCarthyism has been thriving since President Obama’s election, as documented in PFAW reports here and here.