If you've kept a keen eye on the right over the last few days you may have noticed that no one on the right seems to be advocating that Alito will be a vote against Roe v. Wade. In fact the only chatter about abortion from the right-wing conservative intelligentsia concern the claim that Alito's vote against choice inCasey v Planned Parenthood was a nuanced position that doesn't reflect on his actual position on Roe. This from many of the same blogs that were up in arms over Miers' speech in the early 90's praising a woman's right to choose. Thus far the only definitive on Roe has come from the fringe of the right-wing fringe, Operation Resuce.

As of this point, there's been silence from the National Right to Life Committee, Focus on the Family has focused on praising Alito and talking about Democratic opposition to Alito, the Christian Coalition has a petition on their website expressing support Alito, no specific comment on a triumph on Roe.

Despite assurances on Griswold, (let's just say it's a sad day in history when a supreme court justice is deemed open because they believe the state can't prosecute a couple for taking contraceptives), there's a mountain of evidence that Alito represents that a strong vote against Roe, and in curtailing reproductive freedom for women.

The point of this post isn't to clarify Alito's views on choice, it's rather to point out an observation that became obvious for me today. You're not hearing a peep from Republicans about overturning Roe, which has been their signature issue on the moral values questionnaire because they're playing a game of "dog whistle politics." They let the pro-choice organizations motivate the conservative base. The religious right provides the wink-wink for their endorsement, and the pro-choice Republicans are reassured by their pro-choice Senators because they receive assurances that contraceptives will still be on the shelf. This is dog whistle politics folks; send a message to a certain constituency without turning off the other constituencies. Next to the dirty tricks it's what makes Karl Rove famous.

Part of the calculus is that the national media, who traveled with Bush for over a year on the campaign trail and heard him exclaim over and over, "Scalia and Thomas", "culture of life," and "Dredd Scott" will return to form and not follow up on how Bush caved in to the religious right to give them the guaranteed vote against Roe. There's good reason to not talk about Roe of course, with an already mixed reception, a discussion about Roe, and Alito's anti-worker rulings, would doom Alito to the bork pile of history.