Hypocrisy Alert: Part Deux

I posted a few days ago about how Bush's assertion that he knew Miers' "heart" justified her confirmation completely undermined conservative attacks against questioning by Feinstein and Schumer about Roberts' "heart." Now it appears that intellectual-consistency is not going to be the strong-suit of this nomination. (Can a Republican led filibuster be next?)

E.J. Dionne nicely picks up on the latest flip-flop by conservatives in his column today, "Faith Based Hypocrisy." Over the past several years, conservatives have claimed that inquiries by those on the left into how judges' religious faith would affect their decision-making on the bench were illegitimate and showed a hostility towards religion, particularly as it relates to Catholics Bill Pryor and John Roberts. Dionne notes today that, after Senator Durbin indicated that Roberts might reasonably be questioned about the impact of his religious faith on his rulings on the bench:

"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."

So, once the Miers nomination comes out, and social conservatives get very, very nervous, what's the first line of defense by the White House and its surrogates?

Why, not to worry folks, she's an Evangelical Christian!

Hmm. Wait, I get it. Raising the religion issue here to explain how a nominee might rule on the bench is legitimate, when it wasn't if Democrats did it, because, well, it's being done by Republicans!

Dionne ends his column with a quote from a conservative blogger:

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?"

Ah, the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Republican Mind. Harry Reid did quite a rope-a-dope with this one.
- posted by Joshua @ 1:51 PM