FOXNews.com - Politics - Justice Roberts nomination

Let the games begin. The nomination of DC Circuit Justice John G. Roberts is not even seventeen hours old, and already the battle lines are forming.

And all of this is distressingly familiar.

I'm not just talking about judicial filibustering--not, that is, in the traditional sense. I'm talking about a remark that Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) made in a joint interview that he and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) granted to the Washington TV corps last night. I want you all to concentrate on this remark:

I'll meet with Judge Roberts tomorrow. I'll ask him a number of preliminary questions. I suspect that, just like others, I'll probably have other questions I'll ask him prior to the hearing. And I expect to be spending much of August up at my farm in Vermont where I can sit in my jeans and a T-shirt, but I'll be reading all his opinions and everything that he's written.

Now I'll tell you what this sounds like:

In ancient Rome, whenever either of the two consuls, the two most senior regularly elected magistrates, determined that he needed to watch the skies (literally!) for astronomical signs, all business was supposed to stop during that time. Well--in the year 59 BC (Julian reckoning), and more particularly during the Consulship of Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, the junior consul Bibulus did just that: retired to his home in April of that year (April according to Rome's old calendar, that is) to "watch the skies." He then stayed away from the Senate for the rest of the year, thinking that the Senate would agree that no business would be legal during that time. Of course, Bibulus, like just about all of Caesar's enemies, underestimated Caesar--because Caesar had some important legislation passed anyway and had plenty of support from the talking heads of his day, who dubbed that year "The Consulship of Julius and Caesar."

So when Pat Leahy made that remark, and especially when Rush Limbaugh mentioned it on his radio program--well, if I didn't know any better, I would assume that Leahy has been reading Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar and a few other ancient Roman histories, and trying to succeed where Bibulus failed. Fine! Then this session of the Judiciary Committee will get the tag "The Chairmanship of Arlen and Specter" as this puerile display drags on, and Leahy and every other Democrat will look more asinine than they already look. (Haven't I said before that the Democratic Party mascot is aptly chosen?)