Is fear of Islam the new McCarthyism?

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite poses the question over at the Washington Post. She takes on the Islamophobic views of veteran Republican right-winger Newt Gingrich who, she writes, “believes that Americans are ‘at risk’ as a nation, not only from the violence of a ‘militant Islam’, but also from the cultural integration of Muslims in the West. The latter he calls ‘stealth jihadists’. A close historical parallel, Gingrich argued in a lengthy address to the American Enterprise Institute entitled America at Risk: Camus, National Security and Afghanistan, where he is now a senior fellow, is the struggle with communism.”