The Pendragon's Hall

You know things have gotten desperate when even CNN lets slip a Freudian truth. In today's article on the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito, the writer actually said that Senate Democrats have decided to oppose Alito not on the basis of his position on abortion, which the article describes as a "linchpin" of Supreme Court nomination battles in the past, but rather on President Bush's use of executive authority to prosecute the war on terror. It's always fun when people say more than they mean. But it's true. For years all liberals cared about in accepting or rejecting a nominee for judge was whether he or she saw Roe v. Wade as the foundation of all American law. When conservatives thought that position should be reserved for the Constitution, we were accused of playing politics with the High Court. The source of all the fuss this time around is the President tapping the phonelines of immigrants and American citizens known to be in contact with terrorists around the world. Unfortunately, for liberals, the old accusation that he's out of the mainstream doesn't work. CNN/TIME's latest poll shows 68% of Americans support the President's use of spy technology. I wonder when the last time a Democratic president got over 60% support for anything. It may be fitting, then, that the only president in modern history to win more than 60% of the popular vote was Richard Nixon five months after Watergate.... Coincidence? I think not.