Well, I just couldn’t resist running with that Breaux quote referred to in my last post. I’ve had a lot of patience with the Dems through the years, but for me, their deer-in-headlights response to the looming Supreme Court crisis just takes the cake. This isn’t some debate over pork in a highway bill. This is the Big Chalupa.

To her credit, in a recent speech Sen. Diane Feinstein sounded dubious about Roberts, and -- at last! -- turned the tables on the Repubs’ "judicial activism" canard. But then you get stuff like this [Update: Senator Landrieu's site has been changed to provide hurricane rescue info, so no more link here. There was a whole page devoted to her hosting Roberts at some function, complete with warm words for Roberts and high-res, media-ready photos of the two of them together]. I mean, gag me with a judge's gavel! Would a Republican senator butt-kiss an ultra-leftist judge on his or her website like this? I don’t think so. (Sorry to pick on your senator, Louisiana, when you're in the throes of natural disaster. Also, I realize posing a left-right continuum here is bunk, but the need for brevity limits me at the moment.)

[Update: Since I wrote this post, Landrieu has taken an impressively firm tone against Bush's handling of Katrina, suggesting that he stop posing for "photo ops" and that she might have to "punch him" if he keeps blaming local and state authorities. Good for her. But I stand by my earlier point about Democratic senators posing for, well, flowery photo-ops with Roberts.]