It’s dismaying, though, how oblivious most politicians are to the high court’s part in turning free citizens into docile “sheeple” (Pravda’s mocking word). Seeking some comprehension of the crisis, I asked Colorado’s senators, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, what our smaller state with its commitment to participative self-government should constitutionally expect from the Supreme Court. The answers came back bland as sand.

“Coloradans want judges who are fair, impartial, and faithfully apply the law,” said Bennet, adding that he hopes for a sensitivity to “our special concerns in the West” about water rights, public lands, and the role of government. Udall told me the qualities he’s looking for include “moderation, an ability to listen and bridge ideological divides, and above all, a deep understanding of the constitution.” Unlike Bennet, who came out for Sotomayor after a brief meeting, Udall is uncommitted though leaning favorably.

The danger of senators rubber-stamping a president’s judicial nominees, predicted by Oliver Ellsworth at the 1787 convention, seems borne out by these two in relation to fellow Democrat Barack Obama. They need remediation from University of Colorado law professor Robert Nagel, author of “Unrestrained: Judicial Excess and the Mind of the American Lawyer.” Nagel says legal groupthink has made the whole country politically timid and “slavish in believing we need to be saved by the Supreme Court” from the messiness of democracy.

Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky, another Democrat and the first woman on that bench, supports Sotomayor but said she too wishes for a high court with more “out in the world experience” and fewer Ivy-trained Easterners with appellate resumes like this nominee.

Very true, and by that yardstick I’d prefer Dubofsky herself, or Bennet or Udall, or Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, or or even Pat Schroeder our awful former congressperson, to Judge Sonia. Liberals all – but any of them would be less susceptible to the seductive superstition of Supremes as Saviors.