MICHAEL BARONE: 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.

Which is what Senate Democrats, with the active and avid cooperation of many of their friends and fans in the press, have been doing throughout the confirmation process for the Supreme Court nomination of Kavanaugh. They have, in truth, been doing it for decades now. Character assassination has become their weapon of choice.

Yep. It’s enough to make you understand the appeal of the code duello.