Giving Religion the Boot

My earlier opinion that Mier's religious beliefs ought to be moot when considering her for the Supreme Court appears now to be shared by the White House itself. As one Bush aid puts it,

We got distracted by discussions about her faith and church attendance that really have no bearing on her qualifications for the court.

Well, I'm glad someone in the White House recognises that. They may or may not believe it, but at least they acknowledge that her churchiness is not a relavent facet of the public discussion that should surround Miers' qualifications.

They have also apparently begun to realise that sicking Pat Robertson on Republican senators is probably not the best of strategies either. Rove's line that Miers was "an evangelical Christian ... from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life" was enough to assuage the idiot concerns of James Dobson, but it clearly didn't fly with hard line Republicans, who define "conservative" in terms that expand beyond what kind of church the nominee attended.

So now the White House is relaunching Miers in a kinder, gentler way. Instead of her commitment to Jesus, we are now being doused with buckets of adjectives brought to us, of course, by none other than the NY Times:

Intelligent. Meticulous. Selfless. Insightful.

Oh, and let's not forget "gracious" and "funny." I know I always look for a Supreme Court justice who can really yuck it up on the bench and turn those dreadfully boring "arguments" and dreary legal citations into something a little bit edgy and fun.

But that is not nearly the end of her legal resume. Unable to cite anything regarding legal cases Miers has dealth with,

I was racking my brain trying to think of something specific,

one White House aide came up with this brilliant Supreme Court qualifier

She is a very good bowler. For someone her size, she actually gets a lot of action out of the pins.

I smell confirmation!