The Reak of Hypocrisy...

From Today's Washingotn Post:

A Republican strategist involved in the front lines of the battle for the Miers nomination, who asked to not be named because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said the White House plans to regain the upper hand by focusing on the nominee's conversion to evangelical Christianity.

"Conservatives love a fight with liberals," the strategist said. "And one of the things liberals are scared to death of is organized religion. And Harriet Miers is a born-again Christian. When liberal groups and others begin to read about her affirming the Texas sodomy law, contributing to pro-life groups and her religious faith, they're going to go crazy. It's already happening now."

EJ Dionne addresses this specifically in his column today:

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 .

The only principle the Republican Party really believes in is the Principle of Political Advantage.

More from Dionne's column:

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.

It has become clear to me that the institution of the Republican Party views abortion as a tactical advantage in politics and not the great evil that so many people of faith profess.

-The Oklahoma Hippy