A Question for the Democrats

Nomination hearings for the Supreme Court nominees of Republican presidents have been both intrusive and ugly in recent years. Remember the searching for Robert Bork's video rental records? (George Stephanopoulos, December 20, 1998: "As a Democrat, I will say the Democrats should rue the day when they made one simple act: the day they subpoenaed Robert Bork's videos."). And no one can forget the outrageous combing through every detail of Clarence Thomas' personal life, in the hope that some charge, however outrageous, could be levelled against him.

Liberals decry the renewal of the Patriot Act because of the Act's supposed invasions of privacy.

So here's a question for liberals: In investigating President Bush's Supreme Court nominees, will you pledge NOT to use any of the information that you protest the federal government obtaining under the Patriot Act? (That would encompass book store purchases, library records and video rentals, for a start).

Because, after all, shouldn't distinguished jurists have the same "right to privacy" that liberals claim for those suspected of Islamofascist terrorism?