[Supreme Court]

What the ...?

President Bush, this afternoon:

"People ask me why I picked Harriet Miers. 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."

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The reference wasn't random, either. It followed a statement by James Dobson, who was there to vouchsafe Miers' evangelical cred:

"Harriet Miers is an Evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life, that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life."

To mention the hypocrisy would actually shift focus from where it belongs: how utterly bizarre this is. Earlier I mentioned that Bush, at sea, was apparently accompanied by his wife during a Today Show interview because he hasn't the vaguest clue of what's going on. So now Bush needs Dobson to establish his religious bona fides? This train is very seriously off its tracks.

(Is there someone taking bets on whether Harriet Miers' nomination ever actually makes it to the judiciary committee? At this sad point, I give it less than even odds.)