“You had to have a sit down, you had to have an OK, or….you’d be the one who got whacked.”

I think Yglesias exactly nails the brutish logic of Cornyn’s “warning” earlier today. These guys are selling protection, saying that they would hate to see something happen to these judges who won’t cooperate but sadly, unless they do there’s not much they can do about it.

His hope — along, it seems, though less clearly — with Tom DeLay’s is that judges will begin to operate under a cloud of intimidation. They may not like the idea of buckling under to whatever it is Cornyn wants them to do, but Cornyn is making it clear that he’s the judges’ friends. He doesn’t want to see them killed, or maimed, or assaulted. He’s trying to save them. Trying to warn them. Warning them that unless they change their ways someone — someone who has nothing to do with John Cornyn or the Texas cabal running the country, mind you — just might decide to do something crazy. But here’s Cornyn offering a safe harbor. Confirm all of Bush’s nominees, no matter how incompetent, corrupt, or inept they are, no matter how unsound their view of the constitution. And for the others, try to conform your views to those of Bush’s new appointees. Do it and you’ll be safe. If you don’t do it, well, then, certainly John Cornyn wouldn’t advocate killing you, he’s just pointing out that it will happen.

The term “Texas mafia” is no longer metaphorical.

I was particularly intrigued to see that Cornyn’s statement very specifically mentions the Supreme Court but makes no distinction amongst the Justices. He might want to start being a little bit more specific lest some anti-judicial activism nut fails to distinguish between the good guys and the bad and blows away the wrong judge. This is just sloppy, very sloppy.

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