C’mon, Chuck

Chuck Schumer says his Brooklyn gut got the better of him when, rallying for the Supreme Court to rule against a Louisiana anti-abortion law, he said: “I want to tell you, (Neil) Gorsuch. I want to tell you, (Brett) Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price…You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

We don’t think Schumer was urging anyone to show up at a justice’s front door with a two-by-four, but words matter, and his language was clear: There will be personal hell to pay if members of the court rule what he and many Democrats consider the wrong way.

That’s plainly over the line, especially for someone who has raised an alarm about President Trump’s seemingly endless attacks on the judiciary. As a candidate, Trump went after a “Mexican” Indianaborn judge overseeing a Trump University fraud case; in office, he’s attacked a “socalled judge” who blocked an early travel ban; said justices who happen to have beliefs should recuse themselves from anything related to him or his presidency; and dismissed as unworthy of respect a long line of federal judges who happened to have been appointed by the previous president.

That last one correctly drew a rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, as did Schumer’s broadside.

Thursday, Schumer took to the Senate floor and half-apologized, while flaying Republicans for “manufacturing outrage.”

Even manufactured outrage is right sometimes. Why not a simple “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong,” Chuck?