A majority of Americans say President Bush's next choice for an opening on the Supreme Court should be willing to uphold the landmark court decision protecting abortion rights, an Associated Press poll found.

The poll found that 59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

--AP/ABC News

Impressive -- though it's not really surprising. Check out Polling Report's compilation of recent polls on this subject -- for years, a clear majority of Americans has wanted abortion to remain legal. (We're talking about a majority significantly larger than the one that allegedly gave Bush his "mandate.") In fact, the results of this new poll are almost exactly the same as those of an ABC-Ipsos poll taken days after the election. So why did we hear so much talk about "values" voters then, and not hear that 61% of Americans polled on November 3-5 wanted Bush to appoint judges who'd uphold Roe?