"OUT OF TOUCH THEOLOGICAL ACTIVISTS"

On April 24, 2005, the left lost it over Justice Sunday, a rally aimed at raising awareness of the filibuster fight in Washington, D.C. The Family Research Council was one of the event's main sponsors. It was promoted as "Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith."

Particularly focusing on Sen. Bill Frist's taped message for the rally, Democrats kicked and screamed. The uproar was deafening. Dems questioned the appropriateness of Frist's appearance. They were horrified at the "religious right" assembling to express concern over the use of the filibuster to block President Bush's judicial nominees. Generally, they characterized the event as a Democrat-bashing affair, where they were unjustly depicted as being against people of faith. Meanwhile, they wailed about the separation of church and state and insulted believers. In short, Dems considered every aspect of the rally to be improper, deeming Justice Sunday a dangerous gathering of religious nuts.

How dare Democrats be considered against people of faith! How wrong!

As Robert Novak reveals in his column, "Probing the Judges," it turns out the leadership of the pro-abortion wing of the Democrat party doesn't think too highly of all those Bible-thumpers.

Well, well.

Novak writes:

On May 5, the U.S. Judicial Conference in Washington received a request from a man named Mike Rice from Oakland, Calif., for the financial disclosure records of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Edith Jones (5th Circuit) of Houston. A 20-year veteran on the bench, Jones is a perennial possibility for the U.S. Supreme Court. The demand for her personal records is part of a major intelligence raid preceding momentous confirmation fights in the Senate.

Jones was not alone as a target, and Rice is not just a nosy citizen. He and Craig Varoga, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, are partners in a California political consulting firm. Their May 5 petition requested financial information on 30 appellate judges in all but one of the country's judicial circuits, including nine widely mentioned Supreme Court possibilities. Varoga & Rice's client: NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Nobody can recall any previous mass request for such disclosures by federal judges. This intelligence raid is financed by the abortion lobby, but it looks to Republicans like a front for Reid and other senators who will consider President Bush's appointments for Supreme Court nominations.

...The abortion advocacy group surely was not asking the judges' views on abortion. Nancy Keenan, who has been NARAL's president some five months, told this column her organization is concerned about "out of touch theological activists" becoming judges. Why seek financial information from them? She said the disclosure information might help identify the "character" of judicial nominees.

Which nominees? "We have lots of nominees that we have great concern about," said Keenan. "We're watching all of them." In short, NARAL has hired private investigators to embark on a fishing expedition to find irregularities in potential selections for the Supreme Court.

NARAL's Keenan is concerned about "out of touch THEOLOGICAL activists" becoming judges. She's so concerned about these wild-eyed theocrats that her group is funding efforts to dig through the financial information of the nominees, hoping to come up with some damning findings. NARAL is footing the bill for the Dems' opposition research.

Today, the home page of NARAL's website is devoted to the "Nuclear Option." There are cries for abortion supporters to contact their senators to oppose ending the filibuster of judicial nominees. There are calls, "Take Action Now! Frist Poised to Launch the "Nuclear Option."

NARAL shrieks:

URGENT: Take action immediately!

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist looks set to launch the “nuclear option” tomorrow!

That means we have less than 24 hours to stop the Senate from writing President Bush a free pass to pack the federal courts with whatever out-of-touch right-wing ideologues he wants. If the nuclear option power grab passes, Bush’s anti-choice nominees will sail through the Senate – he’ll need only a party-line vote to approve them.

Take action NOW – urge your senators to oppose the power grab!

This statement and the sample letter shown on the page do not refer to the nominees as "theological activists." That wording was not included. Keenan must regret her slip and the connection she made to a judicial nominee's qualifications and theology. Actually, her moment of "candor" is quite telling. The anti-religion subtext is now firmly and forever planted in NARAL's activisim regarding judicial nominees.

All of that whining about Justice Sunday from the secularist left appears very hypocritical now, doesn't it?

It looks like the characterization of the filibuster as against people of faith has been validated.

Thank you, Nancy Keenan, for making that very clear.