"Let us have a bit of sanity here."

Even conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, a long-time critic of "judicial activists," has concluded that Republicans have become judicially deranged "in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case."

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been "threatening judges involved in that case with unspecified retribution," notes Krauthammer. "But at least DeLay was coherent. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) wandered somewhere off the Pacific Coast Highway when, on the Senate floor, he suggested a connection between 'some recent episodes of courthouse violence' and judicial activism -- as if courtroom gunmen are disappointed scholars who kill in the name of Borkian originalism. Even worse was a Washington meeting of over-the-top activists led by Phyllis Schlafly that issued a manifesto for the restoration of God to our constitutional system."

Krauthammer rightly sees the GOP leadership's desire to "empower Congress to regulate judicial decision-making by retroactively removing lifetime appointees" as an assault on the separation of powers.

"Let us have a bit of sanity here," he suggests.