Just as Lenin’s body remains on public display in Russia, because one never knows when he might be useful to rally the masses, so, too, does the ghost (but thankfully not the body) of the late Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., remain a useful symbol for Democrats in Washington.

Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., are the latest to summon McCarthy’s ghost. After Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel whether he had been compensated by foreign interests hostile to the United States for speeches he made in which he seemed to favor their aspirations, Boxer said of Cruz’s tenacious questioning, “It was really reminiscent of a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such and such a date,’ and of course nothing was in the pocket. It was reminiscent of some bad times.”