Wikipedia has given us lots of fun stuff to use for letters opposing the Roberts nomination, among which are:

--The Washington French Fry Incident: In which Roberts wrote an opinion stating that the Washington Metro Authority have the right to handcuff and arrest a twelve-year-old for eating a french fry in the Metro station--a "crime" for which adults are merely fined. (UPDATE: The opinion is here. Roberts felt that the guidelines were "foolish", but felt that the question was whether they violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Courts have not generally been very friendly to the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of minors--see New Jersey v. TLO, an opinion I argued against in ninth grade--so it's not exceptional. So it's a nice media point, but ultimately distracts from...)

For (usually male) Democrats, it's sometimes quite tempting to give up Roe v. Wade for political gain. If abortion were made the province of the states, they think, the Republicans will lose their big national wedge issue and they'll lose the pro-life advantage--plus, the backlash that'll come when abortion suddenly becomes illegal in many states will eventually lead to the relegalization of abortion!

Right?

Wrong.

Yesterday I was preparing to speculate on whether Bush would nominate an obviously anti-abortion judge in order to please his base or a stealth pro-choice judge in order to keep abortion an issue on the national scene. I outlined the short-term and long-term political ramifications of each... and suddenly realized I had misjudged the political calculus.