Andy Schlafly has written a warning against one potential Supreme Court nominee, Michael W. McConnell, a former Bush nominee who was sworn in as 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge on January 3, 2003

Andy writes in his piece, "McConnell: A New Type of Souter":

Judge Michael McConnell is shaping up to be the next David Souter, the notorious Supreme Court nominee of the first President Bush who betrayed Bush's supporters.

History is repeating itself with the recent pressure on Bush to appoint Judge McConnell to the Supreme Court. Unlike Justice Souter, McConnell has written voluminously and his backers claim those writings prove him to be conservative....

The selection of McConnell would be another cruel ruse against the pro-lifers who have worked hard for fifteen years to prevent another Souter mistake. Judge McConnell is every bit as hostile to conservative legal principles as Souter turned out to be.

President Bush would not be sitting where he is today without campaigning on his support of Justices Scalia and Thomas and promising to appoint justices like them. Any violation of that promise would be a breach as severe as his father's infamous breaking of the "No New Taxes" pledge.

Even McConnell's most ardent promoters agree that McConnell is no Scalia. Unlike Scalia, McConnell takes a libertarian approach to freedom of religion: arguing that virtually anything should be legal if cloaked in the name of religion, ranging from smoking drugs to polygamy.

At first blush, that view may seem attractive to the Religious Right. But McConnell's legal philosophy is actually hostile to government expressions of faith, such as invocations at graduation or perhaps eventually the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 1992, McConnell declared as "wrong" the conservative view "that the government should have broader latitude to give voice to the religious sentiments of the community." McConnell's libertarian view gives one person the power to censor hundreds, in order for that one person to be free from hearing a prayer that he does not like.

Conservatives are being told to overlook that issue, as important as it is, because McConnell is supposedly pro-life. Like the claims of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Mario Cuomo, McConnell may be personally pro-life.

But McConnell would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. In a 1997 law review article, McConnell insisted that "the abortion right itself remains secure."

In McConnell's sworn testimony before the Senate in 2002, McConnell volunteered that Roe v. Wade is "as thoroughly settled as any issue in current constitutional law." That is not the comment of someone who thinks it should be overturned.

Indeed, McConnell appears to have carefully avoided saying that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Like Bill and Hillary Clinton, McConnell has a knack for criticizing abortion and Roe v. Wade without supporting what the Supreme Court should do: overturn it.

Much is made of the 1996 Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern, in which McConnell joined others by signing a personal endorsement of pro-life values. However, McConnell did not sign a statement calling for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Instead, all that McConnell endorsed on that point was the following meaningless provision: "the Supreme Court could reject the 'central finding' of Roe v. Wade, that abortion-on-demand is required by an unenumerated 'right to privacy' protected in part by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Even the Clintons and John Kerry would agree, as a factual matter, that the Supreme Court *could* take such action. But McConnell did not agree that the Supreme Court *should* take that action.

RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe and they are fine with persons like McConnell who have supported the virtually impossible process of amending the Constitution. But Roe was the mistake of the Court, and a nominee should be willing to correct that mistake from the bench. McConnell is not.

To the contrary, the Atlantic Monthly said of McConnell's Senate testimony that "he virtually bent over backward pledging fealty to legalized abortion." And this is the person Bush is going to pick for the millions of voters who crossed over to him for the life issue?

The more one looks at McConnell's legal views, the worse they seem. The biggest issue before the High Court in the fall is whether Congress can cut off federal funding of schools that exclude military recruiters.

The Solomon Amendment, signed even by President Clinton, told schools that if they kick military recruiters off their campuses, then federal funding would be withdrawn. An appellate court declared that law unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has agreed to review it.

This is a slam dunk for conservatives, as we assert the right to control how our money is spent. But McConnell is hostile to government selectively funding one activity while denying funds to another.

McConnell packaged his view in the attractive form of wondering whether government must fund religious schools. But his philosophy goes far beyond religion, and could compel government to fund many activities that its citizens oppose.

Why the big push for McConnell, who has so much less judicial experience than many qualified candidates? Led by the media, the lobbying has been intense for Bush to pick McConnell.

Yet at least a dozen other candidates for the Supreme Court plainly are willing to overturn Roe v. Wade and any other liberal folly of the past. One, Edith Jones, was passed over by the first President Bush to pick Souter.

The same forces that brought us Souter are now at work to find another nominee to preserve Roe. With 55 Republicans ready to confirm whomever Bush picks, however, he has no excuse for letting his supporters down by picking McConnell.

With so many pro-choice politicians and judges now tyring to scramble to be seen somehow as conservative, I pray that President Bush has some honest and informed advisers who will give him straight answers. I believe Pres. Bush, being a man of character and conviction, will do the right thing and will keep his word when it comes to his campaign promises and ideals. He has so far.

This President so far hasn't made a single decision just for the sake of satisfying the left. I doubt he'll start now. Besides, why would he want his account of political capital to go bankrupt over something that doesn't advance but rather the realization of his ideals?

It's a shame Bush does not see these flaws and potential problems with McConnell. I pray Bush is given the wisdom to resist this lobbying and pick a nominee who is SOLIDLY pro-life and fix the mistake of Roe v. Wade!!

George Bush probably would make the right decision ... IF he has the right information. That's a huge "IF". Bush relies on us to tell him who is good and who is fake.

We need to speak out. You can bet liberals are going to do everything they can pass off a candidate as a conservative, as they did in getting Souter nominated and confirmed.

He could also be analogized to Blackmun.