In the question of the upcoming hearing on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John Roberts, one thing is certain: Dick Durbin, the Illinois senator who never wore the uniform of a member of our armed services yet compared American soldiers to Nazis, Pol Pot’s death squads and other unsavory characters will be among those doing their best to derail President Bush’s choice for the high court.

He’s already told us that he would oppose any nominee who is, in his words, “outside the mainstream,” a place where in his warped view only conservatives such as Judge Roberts can be found.

As Laura Ingram asked, isn’t Dick Durbin aware that in mainstream America there is nothing wrong with displaying the Ten Commandments in the public square, and a lot wrong with banning such displays?

Or for that matter, unlike Dick Durbin, mainstream Americans are appalled by the very thought of having babies drawn down the birth canal, having scissors thrust into their skulls and their brains sucked out while they are still alive – a gruesome procedure Durbin voted against banning.

In mainstream America same-sex marriage is a no-no. In mainstream America only far-out liberals such as Dick Durbin want judges to improvise from the bench, imposing laws never enacted by any legislative body and often against the will of the people expressed in referenda.

In recent years the national Democrat party hasn’t merely moved farther and farther left, it’s gone farther and farther into cloud-cuckoo-land, with top party members uttering insanities such as those that have become the hallmarks of Howard Dean’s frenzied rhetoric. To put it bluntly, the Democrats have gone ‘round the bend..

We can expect to see example after example of that craziness on display as the party’s lunatic wing in the Senate holds forth during the questioning of Judge Roberts. Teddy Kennedy will rant and rave, the sanctimonious Charles Schumer will attempt to portray Judge Brown as being a threat to the life and liberty of women and minorities and endangered species such as Democrat office holders facing re-election in 2006, and the oleaginous Patrick Leahy will make believe he is involved in a sober examination of the nominee he is really determined to crucify.

Listen to Schumer trying out his interrogative technique, reminding us that the last time he questioned Judge Roberts when he was up for appointment to the District of Columbia Federal Court of Appeals he wanted him to name three Supreme Court decisions with which he disagreed. Roberts declined and will do so again, giving Schumer an opportunity to declare him unfit to serve on the Supreme Court for having done what judicial discretion required him to do.

John Roberts is a Roman Catholic and as such can expect to be grilled by Durbin and his colleagues on whether he would let his religious beliefs color his opinions on abortion. When Judge William H. Pryor was first nominated to the Court of Appeals, Durbin, who describes himself as a “practicing Catholic,” said that “many Catholics who oppose abortion personally do not believe the laws of the land should prohibit abortion for all others in extreme cases involving rape, incest, and the life and health of the mother.”

That statement led Denver’s Archbishop Chaput to scold Durbin for distorting most Catholic’s beliefs.

As Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out in the National Review, Pryor’s opponents adopted “a viewpoint test . . . that has the effect of screening out all Catholics faithful to their church’s teachings on abortion. The only way a Catholic can pass it is by “ceasing, on the decisive issue, to be Catholic — by breaking from his church’s teaching.”

Father Richard John Neuhaus put it this way: for the liberal elites, the only “good” Catholic is a bad Catholic.

None of these guys – not Kennedy, not Schumer not Durbin not Leahy is going to vote to confirm John Roberts, unless he becomes a “bad Catholic.” I don’t think the rest of us want a “bad” anybody on the Supreme Court

©2005 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Cari Dawson Bartley email Cari@cagle.com, (800) 696-7561