Another Robertson Fatwa

People For the American Way has this one:

Pat Robertson threatens retaliation against conservative senators who oppose Miers

On today’s “700 Club” broadcast, the Rev. Pat Robertson responded to criticism from the Right regarding the Miers nomination and also offered a stern warning to those conservative senators who might be thinking of voting against her. Rev. Robertson suggested that people should look at who is supporting Miers before they doubt her conservative credentials. He named James Dobson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Jay Sekulow of the Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice, and himself as proof of support for Miers’ nomination from the Right. Robertson concluded by noting: “These so-called movement conservatives don’t have much of a following, the ones that I’m aware of. And you just marvel, these are the senators, some of them who voted to confirm the general counsel of the ACLU to the Supreme Court, and she was voted in almost unanimously. And you say, ‘now they’re going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative President and they’re going to vote against her for confirmation?’ Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office.”

Sooooo, I guess Sam Brownback, George Allen and any other Republican considering a run in 2008 should vote 'no' on Miers if they know what's good for them (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)? I'm not quite sure; I can see how Brownback might push back although Allen might cave because he's such a wuss.

Not surprisingly, there's some teeny flaws in his reasoning. First, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (the thinly-veiled "general counsel of the ACLU") was very qualified to join the Supreme Court--unlike Harriet Miers, who is very unqualified.

Second, what Mullah Robertson fails to realize is this: the divide over Harriet Miers is not a religious one, but a political one. According to today's NYTimes,

Miers nomination has already been greeted with wariness, even near hostility, by some conservatives Republicans, who have expressed doubts that Ms. Miers is really one of their own. The nominee has never been a judge and so has left no "paper trail" of opinions to dissect.

Critics on the right have also complained that Ms. Miers has given no sign that she has studied or even pondered the sort of constitutional issues that define the modern conservative-liberal divide, and that the White House bypassed conservative legal scholars and justices who had done so in favor of a presidential aide whose chief qualification appeared to be her proximity and loyalty to Mr. Bush.

Not only that, but Bush has applied a religious litmus test to the Miers nomination that was not applied to the Roberts nomination. With Roberts, the Times reports, conservative Christians resisted any discussion of religion. " 'We are going to be vigilant to make sure that there is not this religious litmus test imposed,' Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, an evangelical Protestant group, said in August."

However in today's discussions, Bush said that Miers' religion was pertinent to the overall discussion about her. "Part of Harriet Miers's life is her religion." Like that won't come back to bite him.

See, Pat, this is what you get when you pray for the deaths of Supreme Court justices. The moral of the story: Be careful what you ask for--you just might get it.

Word from our sponsor: Don't forget to watch or tape Howard on the Letterman Show tonight! I'm counting on you--we're out of blank tapes!