Arlen Specter, a man reviled by many on both the right and the left, caused an uproar last week when he suggested that no jurist who sought to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision ensuring the legality of abortion would ever be accepted by the Senate. Specter, who is one of the few pro-life members of the GOP caucus in the Senate, is slated to be the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee--but his comments may have put that in peril.

The Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg penned an article in Thursday's paper entitled "Bork Hearings Resurface as Impediment to Specter" that sheds some light on to the subject. She leads thusly:

Many liberal women have never forgiven Senator Arlen Specter for his pointed questioning of Prof. Anita F. Hill, whose accusations of sexual harassment against Judge Clarence Thomas, then a Supreme Court nominee, riveted the nation. But conservatives have never forgiven him for crossing party lines to defeat another Supreme Court nominee, Judge Robert H. Bork.

Now, 17 years later, those conservatives are about to exact their revenge. Emboldened by their role in re-electing President Bush, conservatives are making Mr. Specter - whose brusque independence has earned him the nickname Snarlin' Arlen on Capitol Hill - a test case of their political power. As they try to keep Mr. Specter, a centrist Pennsylvania Republican who supports abortion rights, from heading the Senate Judiciary Committee, they are demanding a steep concession: support for changing a century-old Senate rule that permits judicial nominations to be blocked by filibuster.

"I would be shocked if conservatives don't extract a pound of flesh from Senator Specter," said Richard A. Viguerie, the Republican consultant, who is circulating strategy memos on the issue. He added, "Republicans have long memories. We'll never forget what he did to Judge Bork." [emphasis added]

Perhaphs I'm a bit oversensitive, or maybe I'm just reading too much in this statement, but I'm quite offended by what Viguerie said.

Arlen Specter is Jewish. The term "extract a pound of flesh" is best known from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in which the stereotypical Jewish character Shylock heartlessly demands a pound of flesh from one of the Christian characters. This perhaps even leads me to believe that there is something more to conservative Evangelicals' hatred of Specter than just his support of abortion rights.

I don't know. I'm not one to bandy about charges of anti-Semitism, but this is just a bit questionable to me. Am I reading too much into this?