It’s wrong to delight too much in the misfortune of others (or maybe it’s just unwise because that sentiment will be returned during hard times, and hard times befall everyone at some point), but the schadenfreude surrounding the Devin Nunes memo is more than a little delicious and it’s hard not to enjoy.

Because Democrats are really and truly worried about its release. One can tell by the fact that they’ve pushed one of their most morally bankrupt, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), out in front of its release to lie about it — this time that the document was altered without House Intelligence Committee approval (alterations Schiff apparently asked for. Streiff has a great takedown of that little song and dance).

Oh but they’re not done yet. No, no. Now they’re trotting out the big, respectable guns in form of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), to assert that the memo is edging very close to when Sen. Joseph McCarthy went a little haywire, accusing everyone and their brother of being a Red Commie back in the 50s. (Not that there wasn’t some validity to his campaign, mind you. The Rosenbergs and Whitaker Chambers actually WERE Russian spies, after all (the latter redeeming himself after a time)).

In any event, Blumenthal made an appearance on New Day comparing the memo’s release to the “dark days” of the Hollywood Blacklist and the Red Scare.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal slams the potential release of the Nunes memo: "The release of this memo is really reminiscent of the darkest days of the McCarthy era" https://t.co/iA9FW3QDb9 https://t.co/0xqsENsKAf

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 1, 2018

“The release of this memo is really reminiscent of the darkest days of the McCarthy era, with character assassinations,” Blumenthal told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.”

“It endangers methods and sources of the intelligence community, and it reflects an effort to distract from the [Robert] Mueller investigation,” he continued, referring to the special counsel probing alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia’s election meddling.

One thing’s for certain, the Democrats are going to hold on to that Russian Collusion investigation narrative for as long as possible, squeezing every last drop out of the accusation (which actually does look a little like McCarthy’s tactics, come to think of it).

But what strikes me is the effort to denounce the memo as something that endangers methods and sources of the intelligence community. Those methods and sources are the very things the memo is purportedly going to allege were the corrupt tools used by a political party interested in retaining power in the lead up to, and following, Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

So the question becomes: why would the Democrats want to protect methods and sources that had been corrupted to the point they became illegal? And if they haven’t been corrupted, if the memo is essentially meaningless, wouldn’t its release prove that, too? To the best of my knowledge, no one’s saying the memo’s a lie. So why are the Dems so afraid to let the American public see what’s in it?