Al-Durbini's Anti-Catholic Fatwa A Bust

Sometimes, late in the evening, when the kids are asleep in their beds (and the wife doesn't have me awake in ours), I'll sit down on my prize couch with a frosty non-adult beverage and ponder questions like whether or not the Senate Minority Whip, Dick "Turban" Durbin has any privately-held regrets about shooting off his mouth on Gitmo, and the otherwise Deaniacal bomb-throwing role he's been assigned. The latest being his nakedly Christophobic attack on SCOTUS nominee John Roberts.

Because from where I sit, it sure looks to be drawing him an awful lot of heat:

[Wednes]day, Catholic League president William Donohue criticized Senator Dick Durbin's attack on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts:

"After Senator John Cornyn laid to rest on Monday any concerns that Judge Roberts would allow his religious views to affect his rulings on the bench, we thought this matter was closed. We were wrong: Senator Durbin told a CNN correspondent yesterday that he 'needs to look at everything, including the nominee's faith... .'

Or, more specifically, that he has a faith and takes it seriously. The Left's trademark religious McCarthyism rides again.

And, just as with Pat Leahy's sudden embrace of litmus tests after his disavowal of them in the Clinton years, Durbin's stance on religious tests hasn't always been so firm:

Speaking about questions regarding the religious beliefs of a nominee for the federal bench, Durbin said on April 15, 2005, 'By the Constitution and by law, we cannot even ask that question, nor would I.'

On June 11, 2003, Durbin took umbrage at Circuit Court nominee William Pryor when Pryor merely noted the historical relationship between Christianity and the nation's founding: 'Do you not understand,' he said, that this 'raises concerns of those who don't happen to be Christian that you are asserting an agenda of your own, religious belief of your own inconsistent with separation of church and state?'

After taking flack for his remark, Durbin said on July 23, 2003 that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ought 'to expunge references to religion from this point forward.' He added, hypocritically, 'This is beneath the dignity of the committee.'

The very next day, July 24, he reversed himself, saying, 'If Senator [Jeff] Sessions is suggesting that anyone who has a religious belief should never be questioned about it, even if it has political implications, I just think [that] is wrong-headed.'

On July 31, he reversed himself again, this time having the audacity to co-sponsor a resolution saying, 'It shall not be in order to ask any question of the nominee relating to the religious affiliation of the nominee.'

"Durbin's duplicity is mind-boggling. But of greater concern is his determination to force Roberts to submit to a religious test."

Did I say that Durbin's "inconsistency" was like Leahy's? I stand corrected; Leahy is merely being hypocritical, and over the space of several years - Durbin is schitzophrenic. And the whipping back and forth in the space of hours may have complicated that apparent condition with multiple concussions. Even Bill Clinton didn't oscillate that frenetically.

But the effect is the same: a tendency to not put stock in anything Double-D says. And, unlike Sick Willie in his heyday, al-Durbini isn't fooling anybody about his anti-Catholic apostasy, as even Congressman Henry Hyde couldn't resist pointing out:

I read with some interest comments attributed to you in news reports detailing your Monday meeting with the President's Supreme Court nominee, Judge John G. Roberts, Jr.

While we may disagree on various domestic and international issues, we have also found common ground over the years on numerous matters of importance to all Americans. As Catholics, we certainly share a common experience, including the awful legacy of anti-Catholic bigotry that permeated Aermican politics well into the 20th Century.

"Irish Need Not Apply" signs were common in the storefront windows of Chicago's neighborhoods until a few years ago, a bias driven largely by the Catholic faith shared by most Irish-Americans. I want to believe that you do not wish to turn back the clock to that ugly period of our history, and that's why these comments attributed to you concern me.

No one of our faith - or that of any other denomination or religion - should be excluded from public office for his or her religious values. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution unequivocally prohibits such a litmus test: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under the United States."

"Practicing Catholics need not apply" cannot become a rallying cry of modern day religious bigots who would seek to drive from the public square all federal office candidates of faith. I hope that your question to Judge Roberts, if accurately reported, does not constitute an opening salvo in a process in which the candidate's faith will constitute sufficient justification for denying him a speedy confirmation. [emphasis added]

When so avuncular and respected a figure as Henry Hyde tells you you're about two steps away from forcing Catholics to wear yellow crosses on their lapels, much less unconstitutionally discriminating against an eminently qualified jurist, even somebody with Durbin's evidently limited moral acumen should be able to grasp that he's gone too far and needs to beat a hasty retreat.

But of course he won't because he isn't. His crowd is backed into a corner and has way too much at stake for even basic fairness and common decency to be allowed to get in the way.

Besides, why should Dr. Demented get to have all the fun?