Susan Collins just had her Margaret Chase Smith moment. She stood with Sen. Jeff Sessions and faced down a nasty smear campaign. Bravo! Maine women have spine!

In the 1950s, America went temporarily insane, obsessed with the idea that communists were everywhere, hiding in our government and poisoning the nation. The words “pinko,” “red” and “commie” destroyed the reputations of many good and decent people.

Sen. Smith, in her “Declaration of Conscience,” was one of the first politicians to stand up to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s tactics.

Today, the words are “racist,” “homophobe” and “misogynist,” and they accomplish the same thing: Destroy a man’s reputation and you don’t have to debate his ideas. The real threat from Sessions is that he will enforce immigration laws with the same rigor that he enforced civil rights laws.

Is he a racist? From The Washington Post, quoting former Justice Department civil rights attorney Larry Thompson, who has considered Sessions a friend for over 30 years: “He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. I’ve been an African American man for 71 years. I think I know a racist when I see one.”

Jonette Christian

Holden