Courts: Hot Air From Hearing Reaches Global-Warming Proportions

Dahlia Lathwick at slate.com has an entertaining report from inside the chamber of the Roberts Confirmation Hearing. It sounds like a perfect storm of blowhardiness and pompousity [is that a word?]. Here's her conclusion [emphasis mine]:

One of the reasons Americans are not very exercised about the Roberts hearings is because they are genuinely worried about bigger things, like whether the federal government is equipped to help them through the next disaster and whether the Bush administration dragged the country into war on a pretext. But today it seems the senators are the ones hopping around isolated behind that marble edifice. You'd think this country were actually at war with a bunch of renegade activist judges who perform abortions on the side, while citing Ruth Bader Ginsburg and pleading the Fifth.

The Senate accuses the high court of being checked out. But the high court grapples with hard questions about the reach of Congress' power and the rights of enemy soldiers, while these senators rattle off canned speeches about overreaching judges. If this is the Senate tackling the tough questions, I'll stick with the court parsing the Commerce Clause any day…

Read the whole thing. It's worth it.

Right after Sen. Coburn filled in 23 Across, he started crying during his statement. Be sure your Tivo is set for The Daily Show, this will be a banner week.