"Shut UP, you Texans!" explained Sen. Boxer in a demonstration of the "new civility"

As a general rule, California Democratic politicians aren't fond of Texas or Texans. But this bit of hyper-partisan hyper-rude behavior from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) — denying Texas senator John Cornyn an opportunity to participate in a Senate committee hearing on proposed EPA power-plant regulations that directly (and massively) affect Texas — may set a new low in Congressional pettiness, at least since the caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856. (Hat-tip Instapundit).

I'm well acquainted with many people in California who are wracked with frustration over their state's fundamentally unserious and self-destructive politicians, so I'm certainly not imputing Sen. Boxer's pettiness to everyone who lives there. But stunts like this only make the political leaders of once-proud California seem even more pathetic and out-of-touch. In the same way that the Ottoman Empire was once considered the "sick man of Europe," or that sunny Greece has become the modern poster-child for European fiscal fecklessness, California is going to embarrass us all over the next decade — and their situation is sure to get a whole lot worse before it even starts to get better, because they're still ignoring the First Rule of Holes.