Democrats’ foul tactics on Kavanaugh may come back to bite them

“I can’t think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United States Senate since the McCarthy hearings,” said Texas Republican John Cornyn as Judge Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Judiciary Committee on the afternoon of Sept. 27, “when the question was, ‘Have you no sense of decency?'”

Cornyn was quoting Joseph Welch, the Boston lawyer representing Joe McCarthy’s targets in the June 1954 hearing, responding to McCarthy’s charge that a young lawyer was a communist. Six months later, the Senate censured McCarthy by a vote of 67-22, and his name became a synonym for manipulating parliamentary procedure and making spectacular and unsubstantiated charges for political gain.