ANALYSIS: TRUE. Confirmation fights got bitter because government got bigger.

Well, that and Democrats using the courts to ram through divisive social changes that they’re too timid to go on the record supporting and/or risk dying in statewide ballot boxes, such as abortion, gay marriage, and socialized medicine. Or as Mark Steyn wrote in 2009, when Obama was still pretending to be against gay marriage:

Democrats win by pretending to be to the right of who they really are. Their base understands and accepts this. Thus, when Democrat candidates profess to believe that “marriage is between a man and a woman” or to be “personally passionately opposed to abortion” or even to favor “the good war” in Afghanistan and if necessary invade Pakistan, their base hears this as a necessary rhetorical genuflection to the knuckledragging masses but one that will be conveniently discarded on the first day in office.

Or when the politically convenient Supreme Court decision is handed down. QED: “It’s Constitutional, Bitches.”