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Faith in the absence of experience

President Bush has invoked Harriet Miers' evangelical faith to reassure skeptical conservatives they have nothing to fear from his Supreme Court nominee. If Democrats now raise the issue of religion at Miers' confirmation hearings, Bush will have no one to blame but himself.

The White House is promoting Miers' nomination by implying to the president's conservative base that her religious beliefs will direct her jurisprudence. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said in a radio broadcast that Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, had assured him even before Miers was formally nominated that she was an evangelical Christian and member of "a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life."

How is this relevant to Miers' qualifications? It has nothing to do with the sharpness of her legal analysis, the depth of her legal thinking or her experience in grappling with constitutional issues. If Bush is suggesting that, for Miers, secular law will take a back seat to evangelical Christian ideology when she is interpreting the Constitution, then he is making the case for the Senate to reject her nomination.

Just a few weeks ago, an uproar occurred when Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. was questioned about his Roman Catholic faith during a friendly getting-to-know-you meeting with Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. Conservatives rightly insisted that Roberts' faith was irrelevant and that the Senate only should look at Roberts' qualifications for the job. But because Miers is such an enigma - she has never been a judge before and during her 35 years as a lawyer she has rarely engaged in the intellectual tussle of publicly debating constitutional issues - Bush decided to use Miers' faith as shorthand for "conservative jurist."

The White House efforts have been criticized from both sides of the political spectrum. Bush seems to confuse loyalty to him and evangelicalism with competence and qualifications, and even members of his own party are tired of it. The Constitution promises that there will be no religious tests for office. Maybe the president should give the document a read-through sometime.

[Last modified October 14, 2005, 01:40:20]