Senator Specter is making the rounds backtracking on remarks he made immediately after his re-election victory. In a post election interview, in which he declared that there are no legal giants on the Supreme Court, Mr. Specter said, “When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe vs. Wade, I think that is unlikely. The president is well aware of what happened, when a number of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster. … And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning.”

Some groups thought that this was a subtle warning to President Bush that he’d better not attempt to nominate another Miguel Estrada, and they immediately went on the attack against Mr. Specter. I received several notices from pro-life groups urging those on the e-mail list to contact the other senators on the Judiciary Committee and voice their concern if Mr. Specter is named chairman. Apparently, the flood of calls to Congress has created quite a brouhaha and has the senator making appearances on television news programs to smooth things over. Mr. Specter was expected to attend the Monday meeting at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, where he would be making an attempt to explain to the high-powered conservative New Yorkers who attend the monthly sessions what he really meant to say.

Chris Slattery, director of Expectant Mothercare, a crisis-pregnancy center, organized a pro-life rally Monday outside the Grand Hyatt, and a simultaneous demonstration was set to take place in Washington outside the office of the majority leader, Senator Frist. At the last minute, Mr. Specter canceled the Grand Hyatt appearance. I contacted Mr. Slattery to see if the picket was going forward. He said it would, because Senator Santorum, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, was also scheduled to appear, and it was important to keep the pressure on.

“Many of those protesting today are Catholics and Evangelicals who worked very hard for the re-election of George Bush,” Mr. Slattery wrote to me. “I’m appalled at the utter contempt displayed by Senator Arlen Specter toward our pro-life, pro-family values. Voters expect judicial conservatives to be reviewed with respect and fairness by the Senate Judiciary Committee – but Specter’s statements clearly demonstrate that he is incapable of this. We oppose giving the Judiciary Chair to Senator Specter and urge Senator Santorum to urge a no vote against him in the Senate.”

Mr. Slattery should also have included conservative Jews in his statement, as Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis was scheduled to be one of the speakers.

The organized attack on Mr. Specter’s possible elevation to chairman of this important committee has been so successful that it’s rather amusing to hear him deny, deny, deny. “I did not warn the president about anything and was very respectful of his constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges,” Mr. Specter said.

“I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue,” he said in a statement issued last Thursday.

I guess he’s forgotten the 1996 campaign speech in which he promised to protect abortion rights and would do what he could to get government out of the bedroom.

Many network commentators have been pooh-poohing the Bush re-election as not really being about moral values. They will now probably try to twist this protest as an example of the fanatical religious extremists seizing the opportunity to overthrow Roe v. Wade. But the issue of the judicial activism by liberal judges circumventing the majority opinion should be of concern to all Americans, not just the religious. With three, possibly four, Supreme Court nominations likely to come up in the next four years, it is vitally important to have judges who rely strictly on the Constitution to base their decisions.

Yes, there is a distinct possibility that Roe v. Wade would be overturned simply because it does not meet constitutional guidelines. Oh, my goodness! Does that mean that you won’t be able to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy? No. It just means that the abortion laws will be decided by the states. That suggests that in the blue states abortion will probably still be legal. So simmer down.

If nothing else, the controversy over Arlen Specter becoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee should bring to light his other statements that make him a very poor choice for such an important post.

Mr. Specter supports the World Court’s jurisdiction over Americans in uniform. Do you want our sons and daughters tried as war criminals because they risked their lives in the war on terrorism? He’s flip-flopped on abortion, and he’s pro-U.N. I think we can do better than the senator from Pennsylvania.