Bankruptcy was the theme of the week. The bankruptcy bill passing in Congress, and the moral bankruptcy of everyone, particularly the Democrats, who voted for it. Which is the latest in a long train of abuses by the Republican leadership -- Matthew Yglesias has been blogging a report with the sorry details.

The Times has an editorial today on the next big fight in Congress, in the Senate, over the nominations of three outrageously unqualified nominees for seats on appellate courts. This at last seems to have provoked the Democrats out of their torpor, if only because it has somehow got through their heads that at this point, if they don't have the filibuster (which the Republicans are threatening to take away), they have nothing at all.

But it's going to be awfully hard to rally the general public to their cause. After years of going along to get along, of "civility" in the face of Republican outrages, it's not going to be easy for people to believe that now, when at long last, their last bit of substantive power is on the chopping block -- that this is the moment when they have finally decided to take a stand on a matter of principle.