They came, they questioned and they got nothing. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Democrats. Almost.

With a history of vicious misbehavior and the political calendar limiting their ability to smear Amy Coney Barrett, Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee were reduced to being annoying nags and finger-wagging scolds. They were never going to vote for any Supreme Court nominee of President Trump’s to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but they don’t even have the option of giving Barrett the Brett Kavanaugh 2.0 treatment.

Another character-assassination attempt of the kind visited on Kavanaugh two years ago — now Justice Kavanaugh — would have been risky business so close to the election, so it was politics, not decency, that stayed their bloody hands. Make no mistake, though, if they could have, the Dems would have trashed Barrett as too religious and too conservative and done everything they could short of setting the building on fire to stop her from joining the high court before the election.