Washington - After Sen. Susan Collins announced on the Senate floor Friday that she would cast her deciding vote to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rose to liken her to another Republican from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, “the first member of the United States Senate to take on Joseph McCarthy … this demagogue and the tactics that he employed.”
If the Republican leader was too subtle, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., speaking next, left no doubt: "This is as close to McCarthyism as I hope we get in my lifetime," Graham said of the Democrats, whom he accused of "mob rule.