[Riot]

I laughed:

Well, earlier today, the panel—really, Republican judicial ppointee Jerry Smith—got the letter it wanted (PDF). And speaking as a lawyer, it's a painfully embarrassing read. As I expected, it's simply a recitation of the most basic tenets of constitutional law that get taught in the first year of law school. It's like explaining band-aids to doctors.

Smith, a notorious partisan hack, pretty much asked the Department of Justice to scrawl "Marbury v. Madison" 50 times on the blackboard, and that's exactly what they did.

But the last word will go to Attorney General Eric Holder, who did the menschy thing and signed the letter himself, rather than making the DoJ line attorney who was the target of Smith's ire take any more incoming fire. Holder's final paragraph reads, in its entirety:

Whether you agree with that or not, it doesn't matter. There's just nothing Smith can do. He can sputter all he likes, he can go to bed every night convinced Eric Holder is mocking him, and he can even continue to make life miserable for the Dept. of Justice lawyers who are appearing before him. But if he was trying to show up the president, he failed—badly.