I'm sorry. I was laughing too hard over this bit of stonewalling by Maryland Democratic Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin.

FROM 1997 to 2001, Rod J. Rosenstein worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Greenbelt. For the past two years, he has been the top federal prosecutor in Maryland and has earned plaudits for his crackdown on gang violence and public corruption. He has worked in public service jobs in the Washington area, primarily in the Justice Department, for roughly 18 years and has lived in Bethesda for the past 10.

Yet Maryland Democratic Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin are portraying Mr. Rosenstein as a carpetbagger. The senators criticized President Bush's nomination Nov. 15 of Mr. Rosenstein to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit because they claim Mr. Rosenstein lacks "a lengthy history of state legal experience in Maryland and strong Maryland roots." The senators also argue that Mr. Rosenstein is doing such a good job as U.S. attorney that he should be kept in that post rather than moved to the court. [emphasis added]

Does this mean we should be counting on Mikulski and Cardin to demand that Rosenstein be kept on -- or they will investigate -- should a Democrat take over the presidency in 2009? Don't hold your breath.

Democrats think that everything will be better come 2009 when they win the White House -- something that's still far from a sure thing. What they don't realize now is that this sort of behavior on well-qualified judicial nominees will come back to bite them. I don't see a 60-vote senate majority for either party in the foreseeable future, and don't be surprised if the Republicans follow the Democrats' example of filibustering judges.

On a related note: I'd be curious to see the Democratic presidential candidates' positions on judges and whether or not they believe there are a couple of Bush-nominated judges who have been unfairly bottled up by Democrats. I'd also like to know if they would consider renominating a couple of Bush judicial nominees -- like Bush did for a couple Clinton nominees -- if they are elected president as some sort of olive branch.

I've got a feeling the answers will be uniformly "no" and "hell, no."