John Kerry on Litmus Testing: Ramesh Ponnuru examines John Kerry's statement that a pledge to appoint only pro-choice judges is not a litmus test, since Roe is "settled law." This is typical political "fine for me but not thee" weaseling. As Ramesh points out, if a Supreme Court decision indicated settled law, as Kerry argues in the case of abortion, then Kerry

is [also] saying that he would never appoint a justice who would vote to overrule a previous constitutional decision of the Supreme Court. Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu, Bowers v. Hardwick: They would all be the law forever. That's quite a platform for a Democrat.

Maybe I'm calling this too early, but Kerry's mouth seems to be so far ahead of his brain these days that it might as well be in a different zip code.