Is it OK to ask questions now?

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Monday that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers told him that Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that said states couldn't criminalize married couples' use of contraceptives, was "rightly decided." That was before the White House protested and Specter issued a press release that, while not retracting his statement, said he simply must have "misunderstood what she said."

Two of Miers' friends from Texas, both judges, told fearless SpongeBob confronter James Dobson two weeks ago that they felt sure Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to a Wall Street Journal columnist. That was before Miers told U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday that "nobody knows my views on Roe v. Wade." And that, in turn, was before senators today received a copy of a 1989 questionnaire on which Miers indicated that she would back a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions not needed to save the mother's life.

So since we have a Supreme Court nominee with no judicial experience, relatively few writings on constitutional law, and a series of supposed misunderstandings about her positions on key constitutional issues, let's hope no one would mind if senators took off the kid gloves at the confirmation hearings and actually went after some straight answers.

Or would that just be impolite?