Harriet Miers, Suddenly Born-Again

With the Christian Right (particularly) going nuts about Bush's failure to put the Right Judge on the Supreme Court, the new narrative on nominee Harriet Miers has now shifted to her evangelical Christianity, with Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the Christian conservative American Center for Law and Justice, carrying the water on this appointment for El Presidente. Sekulow went on Pat Robertson's 700 Club and said Miers would be the first evangelical Protestant on the court since the 1930s: "So this is a big opportunity for those of us who have a conviction, that share an evangelical faith in Christianity, to see someone with our positions put on the court." (NYTimes story today.)

Just so long as she's "independent," right.

And Miers' personal narrative has gone public in a big way, not that we necessarily need to get cynical about how private religion gets paraded every day by this Most Christian administration: As a partner at Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely, "one of the most prestigious law firms in the South, with an office on the 35th floor of the Republic National Bank Tower in downtown Dallas," Miers "felt something was missing in her life, and it was after a series of long discussions -- rambling conversations about family and religion and other matters that typically stretched from early evening into the night -- with Nathan L. Hecht, a junior colleague at the law firm, that she made a decision that many of the people around her say changed her life. 'She decided that she wanted faith to be a bigger part of her life,' Justice Hecht, who now serves on the Texas Supreme Court, said in an interview. 'One evening she called me to her office and said she was ready to make a commitment' to accept Jesus Christ as her savior and be born again, he said. He walked down the hallway from his office to hers, and there amid the legal briefs and court papers, Ms. Miers and Justice Hecht 'prayed and talked,' he said. She was baptized not long after that, at the Valley View Christian Church."

Bush administration operatives are peddling this stuff like drug dealers working the corner.

"To persuade the right to embrace Ms. Miers's selection despite her lack of a clear record on social issues, representatives of the White House put Justice Hecht on at least one conference call with influential social conservative organizers on Monday to talk about her faith and character."

Yeah. So I have overwhelming confidence that Harriet will be able to stand up to Scalia and Roberts. With her history of going with the crowd.