The Tennessee Liberal

From Kos, it looks like Orrin Hatch wants to call certain Democrats on the Judiciary Committee "Pharisees" - here's his quote from Fox News (natch):

"I think senators can ask any questions they want. I've said, no matter how dumb the question may be. But the, the nominee doesn't have to answer them and he should not, under the canons of judicial ethics, he should not answer questions on any issue that possibly would come before the Supreme Court. Otherwise, he would be foretelling how he would vote on those issues and then they would hold that against him. So it's a little bit like Biblical Pharisees, you know, who basically are always trying to undermine Jesus Christ, you know, it goes on the same way. If they can catch him in something, they can then criticize -- and the outside groups will go berserk. And that's that what drives the People for the American Way, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. They're against any Republican. We knew that just no matter who it was -- it could be the greatest person in the world, and Roberts is, is that -- they would come out against him."

Other than the hyperbole of calling Roberts "the greatest person in the world," let's make a quck journey between the lines here. Orrin Hatch compares a Supremem Court nominee to Christ, and then compares Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to the Pharisees. Peruse some of the Judiciary Democrats, if you will: Herb Kohl, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, Russ Feingold. Um, all Jewish. It seems like his message is "we know what they did with Jesus... now they want to do it to our Court nominees!"

Does this strike anyone else as at best offensive and at worst downright malicious? Or am I just a whack-job?