The New York Times has a news article exploring the proposition that "leftist parties" — by which it means not the Democrats, the Working Families Party, or the Green Party, but rather the Communist Party USA and two small socialist parties — have "been given a fresh, beguiling appeal by the failures of capitalist symbols like Lehman Brothers and by debacles like the billions of dollars in securities tied to subprime mortgages."
From the article: "Mr. Webb, who joined the Communists in the 1970s, likes to emphasize the party's rich history, including the fight against McCarthyism and the volunteers who helped the Spanish Republicans battle the Fascists, rather than more unpleasant episodes like the case of the American Communist Julius Rosenberg, who spied for the Soviet Union."
It's nice, I suppose, to see the Times acknowledging that Julius Rosenberg was a Soviet spy, rather than an innocent who was wrongfully convicted. But as far as "unpleasant episodes" of the Communist Party, the millions killed by Stalin probably would outrank Rosenberg's spying.
