By Christopher G. Adamo

The recent Supreme Court vacancy resulting from Justice Sandra O’Connor’s retirement, when considered in conjunction with the ongoing terror war, highlights the pivotal times in which Western Civilization finds itself.

On the one hand, the slaughter of innocent civilians is the chosen weapon that Islamists ruthlessly employ to subjugate their enemies. Among liberals, it is by the iron-fisted use of judicial power that they intend to further their cause.

Certainly, nobody is suggesting that liberals engage in terrorist bombings, beheadings, or the torture of their political enemies. Although, the left regularly makes just such accusations against the United States military, Conservatives, and much of mainstream America.

Yet it is inarguable that both of these dark forces presume to have at their disposal the ability to coerce the rest of society into conformity with their ideologies. And though their views of particular social vices differ greatly, such disparities are vastly outweighed by the common ground they share insofar as they intend to forcibly convert their philosophical opponents through any available means.

Thus, the only workable response of those who reject their brutish ways is to emphatically oppose them. With the Islamists, this involves the use of military power to neutralize their ability to wage a terrorist war, and to otherwise remove them from regions where they can reestablish their influence and reconstitute their ranks.

When dealing with leftists, it is every bit as critical that they be steadfastly opposed, that no attempts at finding “common ground” be made, and that they are decisively prevented from employing their venomous tactics to subvert the political process, the law, and ultimately, the Constitution.

If such rhetoric sounds overly inflammatory, consider the stated intentions of liberals to maintain their hegemony among Supreme Court justices, especially in light of the Court’s outrageous decisions of recent weeks. Americans who remained indifferent to the horrendous usurpations of power exercised in its past abortion and sodomy decisions are just now realizing how the Kelo v. New London “eminent domain” ruling threatens their very ability to own property.

Cleary, as Senate Democrats increase the ferocity of their opposition to the President’s effort to replace O’Connor, they prove that they support such abominable decisions, and have no intention of protecting the rights of any American citizen. Despite continued assertions of being advocates of “the little guy,” their ultimate goal is to increasingly empower the judiciary to bestow and revoke “rights,” through edicts from which no recourse exists.

Furthermore, the very manner in which they intend to wage this judicial battle demonstrates that while they give “lip service” to the concepts of self-government and a nation “of the people,” their goals are much less noble, and much more sinister. Consider the words of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D.-NV), who asserted that the President should nominate someone who would “unite” America.

In context, his words exposed an ominous undercurrent of recent Democrat political strategy. Reid is essentially saying that liberals will continue to foment hostility, division, and strife, not only in the Senate, but all across America, unless they are empowered to dictate the makeup of the Court. Thus, Reid reveals the sinister similarities between the tactics of the left and those of militant Islamists.

Abominable though such a mindset may be, it is nothing new. Liberal behavior and rhetoric in the aftermath of the 2000 elections, and throughout last year’s election cycle, consistently highlighted such sordid thinking. And their hysterical outbursts, whenever called on these matters, prove that their actual purpose is never to elevate debate, but rather to squash it.

Unfortunately, Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican Party’s “Alger Hiss” from Pennsylvania, is diligently working to enable Democrats to succeed. His latest ruse is to suggest O’Connor as Chief Justice if she will remain on the court, his obvious goal being to prevent her departure until a subsequent president can nominate a more reasonable (read: liberal) replacement.

President Bush exhibited a profound clarity of vision when assessing the threats of militant Islam. Unfortunately, he does not appear to notice the grim parallels among his political enemies in both parties. Amid such underhanded tactics, he had better recognize the abject futility of seeking less confrontational responses.

Attempted negotiation and conciliation (such as his unprecedented concession to discuss potential judicial nominees with the Senate), is no more likely to yield a congenial solution than a bargaining session with al Qaeda. And it is no less perilous to America’s future.