Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post today about the Democrats’s infighting over Roberts:

The disputes reflect the frustration and uncertainty of a party that has been routed from power in all three branches of government during the Bush years. There have been disagreements over policy, with widespread anger among activists at Democrats who backed Bush’s tax cuts and voted for the war in Iraq.

Me: Is this a tad strange? I mean the Democrats haven’t been “routed from power” in the judiciary. Bush hasn’t even put a single Justice on the Supreme Court yet. The Democrats were routed from power in the House and Senate in 1994 (with a brief hiccup thanks to Jim Jeffords’ crapweasling).

Update: Woops. I’m sorry, I had to run out of the office and hit “publish” on this post before I was done. When I got back, I got this email which makes my intended second point better than I would have:

Jonah,
Even more disturbing than the question of the degree to which the Democrats have supposedly lost influence in the courts is the assumption that the courts operate just like the presidency and legislature. I don’t really doubt that this was what Michael Kingsley would call a politicians gaffe (an instance in which a politician says what they really think), and it is especially disturbing in combination with Nancy Pelosi’s earlier remark that the Supreme Court speaking is as if “God himself has spoken.” There really is a real and nasty totalitarian impulse in looking at the courts as just another political branch, and the Democrats need to be called on this.