Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was shot to death inside a church in Wichita, Kansas on Sunday.

Over the years I’ve heard all the arguments from the extremists. Wasn’t it morally justifiable to attempt to assassinate Hitler to stop him from killing Jews? What about the world’s other maniacs? There are plenty of them. Is it ever morally justified to kill them? It all depends on the circumstances, some say. Maybe.

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The murder of George Tiller is unlikely to reverse the momentum in the direction of protecting unborn life, it is an unjustifiable act, no matter what spin some people might put on it.

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This is America. There is no doubt that Tiller engaged in grisly activity –- the destruction of babies in the third trimester. Thanks to advances in technology, many of those babies might have lived outside the womb at a time when they were being killed inside the womb.

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Whatever Judge Sotomayor’s “qualifications,” this is clearly a political pick and a “three-fer” for Obama.

She is a woman, a Hispanic and a liberal.

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In much of the commentary so far, there is nothing about Judge Sotomayor’s view of the Constitution which ought to be the primary concern for anyone ascending to the court.

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As the first Hispanic judge she will help shore-up the Democrats’ base among the nation’s largest minority. As a liberal, she satisfies Obama’s criterion for someone who has “empathy” with people. As a woman who almost certainly would uphold abortion rights, she satisfies liberal females.

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The four men arrested in New York for allegedly plotting terrorist acts against Jewish synagogues and military planes ought to serve as another warning to the Obama administration as to the dangers these people present to the country.

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The New York arrests reveal another weakness in America…

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At a time when the president foolishly wants to close the Guantanamo prison camp and has no idea where to send the detainees, and at a time when virtually the entire United States Senate has rejected funds to pay for the closing of the camp, the president should reverse himself and leave Gitmo open — at the very least until we know where he plans to put the prisoners and how he plans to process them.

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Put aside the question of whether a distinctly Catholic institution like Notre Dame should award an honorary degree to a man who stands against any restrictions on abortion; put aside the notion of academic freedom, which liberals favor as an intellectual premise, but rarely practice when it comes to conservative speakers, whom you very rarely see standing at the lectern at commencement ceremonies anywhere in the United States this time of year.

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Obama’s speech was a good beginning, but the ending is what counts and the initial actions of this president when it comes to abortion and stem cell research have not been pro-life.

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Focus, instead, on President Obama’s remarks and whether he is serious, or can be made so, about actually reducing the number of abortions in America, which, according to the National Right to Life Committee, has reached 50 million since its legalization in 1973. Don’t put aside, however, the argument that there is only one reason to even want to reduce the number of abortions and that is that what is being killed, terminated, evacuated (choose your term) is, in fact, human life.

To read Mr. Thomas’s complete column, click here.

Jack Kemp was a personal friend for more than 35 years. We belonged to the same church in Bethesda and our children grew up together. His passing is not only a personal loss for me; it is a loss for the country and his Republican Party.

Next to Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp was probably the most optimistic Republican I knew. He was also a conservative advocate for civil rights long before many other Republicans would address that issue. Much of that was due to his football career and the African-Americans he played with.

In January 1965, he supported a boycott of an all-star game in New Orleans by the American Football League’s black players after they had been refused admission to nightclubs and taxis in the city. Kemp helped get the game moved to Houston where black players participated.

In 1988, at the GOP convention in New Orleans, I attended a reception hosted by Jack. There may have been more African-Americans at that one event than in the entire GOP at the time. While Kemp tried to get more blacks voting Republican, that wasn’t the primary motivation for his civil rights activism. His civil rights activism was based on principle.

Jack liked to say he was the only HUD Secretary with his own foreign policy. He had a great sense of sense of humor, an infectious optimism and a great mind, especially when it came to economics. He drove the Reagan tax cuts that launched our modern prosperity. To say he will be missed is an understatement. There is no other Republican quite like him.