A little red meat to cleanse the palate via Mediaite. Given the network she’s on, there’s no other line Mitchell realistically could have taken on this. But even so, does it matter not at all that Feinstein couldn’t answer a very basic question about the Second Amendment on the constitutional merits? Go watch her response again. How many decades does she need as a “thought leader” in the Senate on gun control to be able to explain in a pinch why it’s not an infringement on the right to bear arms to ban certain types of weapons? The closest she gets to a legal point is mentioning the Heller decision in passing; the rest of it is all variations on “don’t you know who I am?”, from her tenure in Congress to the gun violence she’s seen with her own eyes. Only after Cruz follows up does one of her colleagues help her out by feeding her a constitutional counterargument. Question: If this is all about reacting to carnage, what to make of the fact that many U.S. military vets who’ve seen worse than what Feinstein’s seen oppose the assault-weapons ban? And what about the moderate Dems like Mark Begich and Mark Pryor who plan to vote no? Is their problem the fact that they just haven’t looked at enough bodies yet? (Answer from Michael Moore: Yes.)

This clip ends up being a useful microcosm of how constitutional concerns are typically dismissed, and not just on this issue. Feinstein’s passionate; she’s an authority figure, as she’s quick to remind you; she’s convinced the country’s facing a crisis and that the only moral response is to Do Something. What kind of bloodless pedant would ask a question about civil liberties under those circumstances, when the bloody shirt has been raised? Bonus points to Mitchell for holding up a physical copy of the Constitution while she’s busy adopting that “reasoning.”