[Mb-civic] Faith-Based Hypocrisy - E. J. Dionne - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Faith-Based Hypocrisy

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 7, 2005; Page A23

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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601584.html?nav=hcmodule
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