Bush on Miers' Orthodoxy

Okay, so W says that Harriet Miers' religiosity is important, if it's the right kind of religiosity:

President Bush sought again today to reassure conservatives about his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet E. Miers, and he said that Ms. Miers's religion was pertinent to the overall discussion about her.

That he can even get away with publicly invoking her religious beliefs in order to assuage the base is horrifying enough, but that he can apparently get away with it is even worse. I listened to NPR coverage all day and read a handful of MSM reports on this story, and nobody's really commenting on the fact that not only is the president endorsing a particular sort of religion - i.e., evangelical Protestant Christianity - but that he is also implicitly advocating that form of religion as the - not just a - best basis for a judicial philosophy and, by extension, for American courts and, indeed, the government.

In my view, this is crucial both because Bush is so carelessly and easily making an end run around the First Amendment even as he repeats Rove's talking points about "strictly interpreting the Constitution" and because Bush is finally saying what we always knew was true: if you ain't born again, you ain't nothing.