Is Machine Gun Sammy soft on the fascist hate crime known as the Roe v. Wade decision?

The LA Times obviously hopes Bush found himself a Kennedy Catholic instead of a Scalia or Thomas Catholic.

Some antiabortion groups are starting to wonder whether Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. is as strong an ally of their cause as opponents have depicted him.

Although he has been wholeheartedly embraced by most major conservative groups, those whose sole mission (Ooooh! People who dare to believe something different than the Times! - F. G.) is to restrict and prohibit abortion have reservations about the latest Supreme Court nominee as they learn more about his record on the divisive issue.

"I don't know what his personal views are, but I know that he has ruled on pro-life cases four times and he has ruled against pro-life positions three times. And the fourth was a split decision," said Richard Collier, president of the Legal Center for the Defense of Life, based in Morristown, N.J.

"If you look at the paper trail, it is all negative."

Another group from New Jersey — Alito's home state and the jurisdiction where many of his rulings as an appeals court judge have had a direct effect — is also concerned.

"There's a big question mark about what he would do" on the Supreme Court, said Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life.

"We certainly hope that Judge Alito is all the things that our opponents claim he is, but we don't know that yet."

Remember, Big Babykilling attacked Miers at the beginning, then became strangely silent.

A leading antiabortion group, the National Right to Life Committee, has not taken a formal position on Alito's nomination, but the organization's website suggests that the group considers his record on abortion to be mixed at best.

"In examining his record, there are four principal abortion-related cases," the group's website states. "Judge Alito voted in favor of the pro-life side once and against it three times."

Americans United for Life, a national organization of antiabortion attorneys, believes his record is ambiguous.

Alito's rulings "give no clear indication one way or another," said Clarke D. Forsythe, director of the group's Project in Law and Bioethics.

"They reflect his status as a Circuit Court judge applying precedent, and to me they give no indication of how he would vote" on Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling on abortion.

In short, Forsythe said, abortion foes are of two minds on Alito: "Many have hope and many are withholding judgment.

"Major social conservative groups such as the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America have endorsed Alito without reservation.

But the chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, Jan M. LaRue, said the group considered more than just abortion in backing him, particularly Alito's rulings in support of religious liberties.

LaRue said that in cases where Alito ruled against positions that some considered antiabortion, he was not expressing his own views but simply applying existing precedents, including Roe.

"The opinions I've read show a Circuit Court judge who recognizes what all the lower-court judges recognize, which is that they can't overrule the Supreme Court," LaRue said.

The bottom line? Roe is bad law. Any judge dedicated to the rule of law will vote to overturn it. "Precedent" built on bad law is not precedent and must be ignored.