"Spat Over Specter Subsiding" is the headline in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Specter said he was making it clear to anyone who would listen -- including conservative talk show hosts -- that he would not impose an abortion litmus test on any Supreme Court nominee proposed by Bush.

...but NotSpecter.com and StopSpecterNow are still going strong, the anti-Specter pray-in was going to go ahead as planned today in D.C., and now the gun-rights organization Gun Owners of America is getting into the act:

ACTION: Contact your Republican senator(s). Ask him or her to vote against naming anti-gun Senator Arlen Specter as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Please visit the GOA Legislative Action Center at www.gunowners.org/activism.htm and look up your Senator(s) contact information. Just plug in your zip code under “Elected Officials,” and then use the pre-written message below to call, fax or email your Senator(s).

They claim their party has a "big tent," but the most devoted Bushites won't stand for a social moderate as Judiciary Committee chairman. Bush insisted in the third debate that Kerry "clearly has a litmus test for his judges," but Bush supporters have a litmus test for this chairmanship -- and perhaps more than one litmus test. The Democrats are supposed the party that's in thrall to interest groups, but the Dems are about to choose a Senate leader who's anti-choice, while pro-choice Specter may be denied a leadership post. Which is the party that's abandoning "the middle" and catering to extremists? Which is the party that's turning its back on huge portions of America?