Every now and again, I have referred to the James Dobson veto over social policy in the Bush administration. I usually get several emails afterwards, telling me that’s nonsense and that one religious outsider does not have that much clout in the White House. And then you read articles like the WaPo tick-tock on the Miers nomination, and you come across passages like this:
Recognizing that conservatives might not find Miers exciting, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove tried to lock up a few important figures who would back her, mainly James C. Dobson, head of the evangelical Focus on the Family. As Dobson later recalled it, Rove assured him “that Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian [and] that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life.” That was enough for Dobson, and Dobson’s blessing was enough for Rove.
The person who gets that call is pretty powerful, don’t you think? It’s also clear that Rove used an explicitly religious test for a public office to get his most influential backer’s support. He did something that violates both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. We only know about it because it failed. Next time, when it succeeds, we should at least recognize what we have here: a toxic conflation of politics and religion, one that has also infected the judiciary. It seems to me that using explicitly religious criteria – rather than jurisprudential philosophy – for judicial nominations is yet another sign of how degenerate Bush’s brand of conservatism is. Much of it is not, in fact, conservative at all – but a profound betrayal of the entire tradition. I’m relieved that more and more people seem to be recognizing that.
The Dish 