The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) defines "McCarthyism" as:
the practice of publicizing accusations of political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence
And here's what Bill said when pushing the idea of a Clinton-McCain matchup, obviously in contrast to an Obama-McCain matchup:
"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," said Clinton, who was speaking to a group of veterans Friday in Charlotte, N.C. "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."
The Clinton campaign's defense of his statement was unconvincing. They say "President Clinton was talking about the need to talk about issues, rather than falsely questioning any candidate's patriotism."
But they ignore the first part of his statement, where he clearly says we will only be able focus on the issues IF we had two people like Clinton and McCain who loved the country. This strongly implies that the other candidate (Obama) doesn't love his country. In other words, Bill is "publicizing accusations of political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence".
Of course, since he didn't directly say it, it allows him and his supporters to hold onto some semblence of plausable deniability. This follows a long line of incidents involving Bill where he tries to strongly suggest something bad about Obama without directly saying it. A perfect example came during his interview with Charlie Rose last December where he repeatedly took veiled jabs at Obama and then denied it when Rose asked him directly about what he was suggesting:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/interview_with_bill_clinton_1.htmlAnd he did it again a month later while race-baiting in South Carolina:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/01/bubba-obama-is.htmlIf it happened just one or two times, I might be able to believe his line about people being hypersensitive and misinterpreting his remarks. But this has happened multiple times now and I just don't trust Bill anymore.