She's Religious!

From the AP:

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Bush, speaking at the conclusion of an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, said that his advisers were reaching out to conservatives who oppose her nomination "just to explain the facts."

He spoke on a day in which conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on Family, said he had discussed the nominee's religious views with presidential aide Karl Rove.

Asked why Rove would have discussed Miers' religious views if the president ascribes to a conservative judicial philosophy that backs a strict interpretation of the Constitution regardless of one's views on various issues, McClellan said it was just part of an "outreach" to help people get to know Miers.

From merely questionable, to completely embarrassing, and now utterly contemptible.

Forty-five years ago, one of the main objections conservatives and others had about JFK was his Catholicism; during the campaign, Kennedy had to reassure voters constantly that if elected president he would not be taking orders from the Vatican and his faith would not influence his policies. Indeed, similar fears had contributed to Alfred E. Smith's defeat in the presidential election of 1928. So does anyone else wonder just how the hell we devolved to the point where religion is openly and proudly cited as the defining personal quality of a nominee for one of the most important public jobs, and someone like James Dobson is a player in determining who will sit on the nation's highest court for the next few decades?