Washington Post / October 7, 2005
Faith-Based Hypocrisy
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Now we know: President Bush's supporters are prepared to be thoroughly
hypocritical when it comes to religion. They'll play religion up or
down, whichever helps them most in a political fight.
Shortly after Bush named John Roberts to the Supreme Court, a few
Democrats, including Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), suggested that the
nominee might reasonably be questioned about the impact of his
religious faith on his decisions as a justice.
Durbin had his head taken off. "We have no religious tests for public
office in this country," thundered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.),
insisting that any inquiry about a potential judge's religious views
was "offensive." Fidelis, a conservative Catholic group, declared that
"Roberts' religious faith and how he lives that faith as an individual
has no bearing and no place in the confirmation process."
But now that Harriet Miers, Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, is in
trouble with conservatives, her religious faith and how she lives that
faith are becoming central to the case being made for her by the
administration and its supporters. Miers has almost no public record.
Don't worry, the administration's allies are telling their friends on
the right, she's an evangelical Christian .
Marvin Olasky, a conservative Christian writer who has been a strong
Bush supporter, explained his sympathy for Miers. "Maybe it's the
judicial implications of her evangelical faith, unseen on the court in
recent decades," Olasky wrote on his blog. "Friends who know Miers
well testify to her internal compass that includes a needle pointed
toward Christ."
James Dobson, the founder and chairman of the evangelical organization
Focus on the Family, told Fox News's Brit Hume: "We know people who
have known her for 20, 25 years, and they would vouch for her. . . . I
know the church that she goes to and I know the people who go to
church with her." On the Wednesday edition of his radio show, Dobson
was more specific: "I know the individual who led her to the Lord."
Rather mysteriously, Dobson, who was briefed on the nomination by
Bush's chief lieutenant, Karl Rove, told Hume: "I do know things that
I am not prepared to talk about here." He was equally cagey with the
New York Times: "Some of what I know I am not at liberty to talk
about." The intrigue whetted the curiosity of Sen. Ken Salazar
(D-Colo.), who said that "if the White House gives information to
James Dobson, that information should be shared equally with the U.S.
Senate."
Jay Sekulow, counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, said
on Pat Robertson's television show that the Miers nomination was "a
big opportunity for those of us who have a conviction, that share an
evangelical faith in Christianity, to see someone with our positions
put on the court."
The use of Miers's religion as a magnet for conservative support is
not just the work of a few religious voices. It's part of the
administration's strategy. The New York Times reported that the White
House put Judge Nathan L. Hecht, Miers's close friend and a fellow
member of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, "on at least one
conference call with influential social conservative organizers" to
testify to her conservative faith.
Let's be clear: It is pro-administration conservatives, not those
terrible liberals, who are making an issue of Miers's evangelical
faith. Liberals are not opposing Miers because she is an evangelical.
Conservatives are telling their friends to support Miers because she
is an evangelical.
There is, however, some good news. A significant number of
conservatives are outraged over the administration's look-at-her-faith
campaign. I was first tipped off to the White House's pious strategy
earlier this week by a prominent conservative who is very sympathetic
to people of faith but angry at what he sees as the misuse of religion
in the Miers battle.
And Ed Morrissey, whose "Captain's Quarters" is one of the most
popular conservative blogs, said publicly what other concerned
conservatives have said privately. "The push by more enthusiastic
Miers supporters to consider her religious outlook smacks of a bit of
hypocrisy," Morrissey wrote. "After all, we argued the exact opposite
when it came to John Roberts and William Pryor when they appeared
before the Senate Judiciary Committee. . . . Conservatives claimed
that using religion as a reason for rejection violated the
Constitution and any notion of religious freedom. Does that really
change if we base our support on the same grounds?"
I'm eagerly awaiting the White House's answer to that question.
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