I’m tired of Republicans dancing around the Roe v. Wade issue, these days as it relates to John Roberts and the Supreme Court. What are they afraid of? Can we get a pro-lifer to the Supreme Court only by being stealth about it? I don’t like it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of or secretive about.
Case in point: Fred Thompson yesterday on Meet the Press. Read the excerpt from his interview on page 2, and see him do the dance.
If only pro-life legislators/spokespersons would frankly discuss the contradictions with the pro-abortion position such as they all do behind the scenes, they would break a pschological logjam with the American people, particularly if they invest time educating them.

Excerpt from Meet the Press, July 24, interview between Tim Russert and Republican Fred Thompson, advisor to John Roberts and a former senator from Tennessee.
[Note that Thompson connects Feminists for Life with Planned Parenthood, as if the group cannot stand alone as a proudly pro-life organization. Also note that Thompson does not think the WH has asked Roberts about his pro-life position, which I find incredible. Also note how open Ginsberg was on her pro-abortion position. What’s wrong with a pro-lifer being as open?]

MR. RUSSERT: But Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who appeared in 1993, said this. “[A decision on abortion] is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity. It’s a decision that she must make for herself. And when government controls that decision for her, she’s being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
That’s a very specific comment on the issue of abortion at her hearing.
MR. THOMPSON: Well, she also took the position on many, many, many instances during those hearings that she couldn’t comment on cases either past or future cases. And she even wrote an article saying that–and her observation of the Judge Bork hearings that Judge Bork perhaps went too far in trying to answer these same kind of questions. So each justice or prospective justice has to make their own determination about that, but the pattern with Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer and Justice Rehnquist, all of them, has been remarkably similar, that there’s a line which they can’t properly cross just to bargain with the Senate, as it were, to get a job. They can’t be put in that position.
MR. RUSSERT: The American people are being polled on this issue obviously and the question asked by The Washington Post, “Should John Roberts state his position on abortion?” Yes, 64 percent; no, 34 percent. That’s overwhelming.
MR. THOMPSON: That can’t be decided on polls any more than cases can be decided on basis of polls.
MR. RUSSERT: The interesting thing in all this is that when you have John Roberts arguing on behalf of his client, he’s saying it should be overturned; then in seeking to be on the Court of Appeals, he said, “Well, it’s settled law, it’s precedent.” But once you’re on the Supreme Court, anything can be unsettled. Brown vs. Board of Education was settled law, separate but equal.
MR. THOMPSON: Plessy vs. Ferguson.
MR. RUSSERT: And he could, as Supreme Court judge, decide that it was not properly decided and should be returned to the states, but we’ll never know that until he becomes a justice.
MR. THOMPSON: That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been. People just can’t render opinions while they’re sitting there. It is true that a couple hundred occasions anyway, the Supreme Court has reversed itself. But all you can ask for is for a person to be open-minded, to listen carefully to the factual situation that’s before them. Judge decides policy, or at least the–I mean, don’t decide policy. At least they shouldn’t. They decide cases, a particular factual pattern, a particular applicable body of law. He’ll look at all that. He’ll look at the Constitution. He’ll be open-minded. He holds himself out to perhaps be persuaded by his own colleagues, as I’ve heard him talk about, as happened in times past on the Court of Appeals, and be fair and open-minded about it based on his own experience and views. And that’s what the president promised in his nomination, and that’s exactly the kind of person that he’s got. The president hasn’t asked him these things. I haven’t asked him or talked to him about these things and…
MR. RUSSERT: Has anyone on the White House staff, anyone involved in the vetting or interviewing process asked him about his views on Roe vs. Wade?
MR. THOMPSON: No.
MR. RUSSERT: Nobody?
MR. THOMPSON: No. I mean, you know, I’m not privy to every conversation, but I’d be shocked and amazed, and I’ve been assured that they have not.
MR. RUSSERT: There have been a series of newspaper articles about John Roberts’ wife and her role in a group called Feminists for Life. Is that fair to talk about her positions?
MR. THOMPSON: No.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think…
MR. THOMPSON: No. I don’t think anybody’s really going to go down that road of this professional woman and whether or not she ought to have a right to have her own associations. I will say that this particular group that you’re talking about is–most of their emphasis, as I understand it, is helping young girls. They’ve joined with Planned Parenthood and other associations, you know, in common endeavors along those lines. But this is a professional woman who has her own associations and her own ideas, and I assume that her husband’s proud of her for that. But…
MR. RUSSERT: You don’t…
MR. THOMPSON: …she’s not been nominated for anything.
MR. RUSSERT: And you don’t expect that to come up in the hearing?
MR. THOMPSON: I would be very surprised.