And the Oscar goes to....

Dianne Feinstein for her leading role in the Supreme Court nomination hearings on John Roberts. Feinstein (D - California) played the part of "over-the-top, concerned person of the common people" by asking the tough questions, or perhaps maybe they were not really questions, but self-praising anecdotes about herself. George Will of the Washington Post certainly thinks so in his Op/Ed piece:

Now, some people might think that detachment is a good thing in a judge -- that it might be the virtue called judiciousness. Never mind. Feinstein's real worry is, she said, Roberts's failure to explain how he planned to be "in touch" with "the problems real people have out there." She was dismayed by the inadequacy of his discussion of "the importance of reaching out to communities that he normally would not be in contact with, and spending time to understand the problems that average people face, in my communities of Hunters Point, of East L.A., of some of the agriculture areas of our state." ...

Feinstein should have been more fluent because she was talking, as senators are wont to do, about . . . herself. Some of her "questions" to Roberts were a familiar form of preening, of moral exhibitionism. They were an example of how liberals compete, mostly among themselves, in the sensitivity sweepstakes. She might as well have simply said: Look here, Roberts, are you or are you not in my league as a world-class reacher-outer to, and a stayer-in-touch with, plain people?

Cue the violin.

Will does a great job in this article highlighting the liberal's false "cause for the common man" - check out his full article.