People have collected a set of something like 25 dumbest things said about Hurrican Katrina (If you haven’t seen the Wolf Blitzer, "They’re so poor….They’re so black" clip by now, you’re very late to the party. You might just laugh for like five minutes straight. ), but someone now needs to do a 25 Dumbest Things Said During the Roberts hearings. It’s just appalling and embarrassing, frankly. Just go read Ann Althouse and pick ’em out. It’s fall, and the orchard’s ripe for it.

Senator DeWine blats out this cornball advice: "By becoming John Roberts the chief justice, don’t ever forget to be John Roberts, the man." And then: "When you put on that black robe and assume your spot on the Supreme Court, you will surely bring with you your heart and your soul, the values you learned from your parents and others that you learned as you grew up in the wide, open fields of your youth."

Dianne Feinstein. The only woman on the committee begins by addressing Roberts’ family, soothing their feelings: Don’t feel bad if we really push this family member of yours, of whom you are justly proud. Why does the one woman on the committee have to be the one that talks to the wife? It’s got to be the woman who takes care of feelings, doesn’t it?

Cryin’ Tom Coburn bores me to tears except when he amuses me with: "Would you agree that the opposite of being dead is being alive?" And with his "medical" opinion — he’s a doctor — that Roberts is a credible witness: "I will tell you that I am very pleased, both in my observational capabilities as a physician to know that your answers have been honest and forthright as I watch the rest of your body respond to the stress that you’re under."