Is discourteous conduct toward the judge a contemptuous conduct?

Personal disrespect toward the judge is a different matter. While discourteous conduct may be no less contemptuous than, say, refusing to discontinue a forbidden line of questioning, personal feelings and bruised egos come into play. (See Bloom v. State of Illinois (1968) 391 U.S. 194, 202, 88 S.Ct. 1477, 1482, 20 L.Ed.2d 522 ["Contemptuous conduct, though a public wrong, often strikes at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge's temperament."].) To prevent the power to punish committed to the judge from becoming an "instrument of oppression," he or she should be "long of fuse and somewhat thick of skin." (DeGeorge, supra, 40 Cal.App.3d at p. 312, 114 Cal.Rptr. 860, citing Gallagher v. Municipal Court (1948) 31 Cal.2d 784, 795, 192 P.2d 905.)