was all a show, but one thing was real—the desire to be a pal. McCarthy loved the good-fellowship that being a celebrity produced, and he was, McCulloch decided, brilliant at creating an aura of instant friendship. McCarthy’s carnival-like four-year spree of accusations, charges, and threats touched something deep in the American body politic, something that lasted long after his own recklessness, carelessness, and boozing ended his career in shame. McCarthyism crystallized and politicized the anxieties of a nation living in a dangerous new era. He took people who were at the worst guilty of
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