As I read this description of yesterday’s Senate testimony by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I couldn’t help but be put in mind of the trial of Charles Darnay in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

Democrats turned the Senate Judiciary Committee into a circus-like political rally Thursday, complete with chants from costumed demonstrators. Alberto Gonzales was the most sober man in the room. How does "The World's Greatest Deliberative Body" treat the nation's chief law enforcement officer?

With his panel breaking for lunch, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy was seen giggling as a departing Attorney General Gonzales was subjected to crowds holding up signs and bellowing "Resign!" in the hearing room. After Gonzales returned for the afternoon session, noisy demonstrators were allowed to roam freely around the room with their placards. At the hearing's final gavel they sang and shouted taunts.

Why didn't Leahy have the Capitol Police clear the room? Why didn't the ranking Republican, the liberal Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, call on Leahy to do so? Or someone on the committee concerned with the Senate's highfalutin reputation?

They didn't because that mob demanding Gonzales' scalp is what the hearing was all about. The senators may have worn suits and ties and spoken in softer tones (though not always), but their blood lust for the White House is just as fervent as the extremists who wore orange garb and pink police costumes and had "Arrest Gonzales" duct-taped on their backs.

Leahy’s actions and inaction were a disgrace to the Senate virtually unrivaled since the founding of the Republic (perhaps exceeded only by the failure of Democrats to come to the aid of Charles Sumner as he was brutally beaten at his desk by a fellow-Democrat from the House of Representatives) – and the grandstanding by members of the committee indicates the proceeding had even less concern with justice than the proceedings at Salem in 1692.

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