Not that Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was threatening anybody.

Golly, no. On the Senate floor this week, he was just, um, wondering.

“I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country,” mused Cornyn.

” … I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in – engage in violence.”

Unfortunately, Cornyn ran out of time – or maybe rational thought – before he could explain which unaccountable political decision the Atlanta rapist was protesting when he killed the state judge and three other people, or just how the losing plaintiff in a federal civil case was representing the public when he killed a federal judge’s husband and mother.

Still – and who knows “if there is a cause-and-effect connection” – it seemed striking to Sen. Cornyn on Monday that just as some judges reached decisions he didn’t like, other judges and their families were being murdered.

Not everyone is pondering gunfire as a form of constitutional disagreement, but in certain GOP circles it’s clearly open season on judges. Republicans in the House and Senate are loudly denouncing jurists for rulings in the Terri Schiavo case, on gay marriage and other social issues, and for just generally declining to do what Republican congressmen want.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, warned after the Schiavo decisions, “We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that snubbed their nose at Congress and the president. We will look into that.” He added darkly, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”

DeLay’s sense of timing makes him a moderate compared with Cornyn, who wanted judges to know that their time to answer could come at any moment – maybe down in their basements.

Members of Congress, like other people, frequently take exception to judges’ decisions, even when the congressmen aren’t pleading not guilty. But the current fury extends beyond disagreement, to a rage against judges – much of the time, Republican judges – for just daring to claim that there is any law beyond what members of Congress want.

Last month, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., attacked Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer – who’s been getting death threats a lot more explicit than any of Cornyn’s musings – for decisions “outright disrespectful to Terri’s family,” adding, “The actions on the part of the Florida court and the U.S. Supreme Court are unconscionable.”

Strong words for one branch of government to use about a branch that’s co-equal – at least for the moment. In February, two of Santorum’s colleagues, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Sam Brownback of Kansas, denounced a federal judge’s decision in an obscenity case: “This is what happens when judges ignore the law in favor of their own agenda. … In their wake, the Constitution lies in shambles, statutes passed by the people’s representatives are in the Dumpster, the rule of law loses its vitality and, once again, the people are deprived of the right to govern themselves and define the culture.”

Hatch and Brownback at least get to the core of the outrage: the idea that it’s intolerable for any judge to interfere with Congress, to block popular government and its right to “define the culture.” As the Senate moves toward its confrontation on judicial nominations, it makes you think that the goal isn’t Republicans or even right wingers, but rubber stampers – or else.

Some congressional conservatives have another solution.

“When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them,” Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., suggested to the Christian Coalition last November. “Federal courts have no army or navy. … At the end of the day, we’re saying the court can’t enforce its opinions.”

After 200 years, that might seem an extreme position. Then again, at least Hostettler wasn’t musing about judges having their families killed.