We aren’t the only ones to catch the Rehnquist retirement rumor mill bug. Flip Benham of “Operation Save America” just put out a press release entitled “The Republican Fix is On” [sic]:

Note well that to the surprise of all, Sandra Day O’Connor was the first to retire from the Supreme Court. In truth her retirement was a well-choreographed maneuver. It tested the waters to find out how the conservative base would react to the nomination of Alberto R. Gonzales. The reaction was not good. But, with the retirement of William Rehnquist, the way is now paved for Alberto Gonzales to be nominated by President Bush to fill one of the vacancies on the Supreme Court.

Pretty Slick! President Bush is now able to appease both sides of the aisle. This is what he did so well as governor of Texas. He appeases his conservative base by giving it a strong conservative voice (strict constructionist) to replace Rehnquist, while placating the Democrats by giving them Alberto R. Gonzales.
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Sure the Democrats will howl ‘foul’ over any nomination the President places before them. That’s what they do best. But all that howling will be tongue in cheek. For they know they will have preserved the Supreme Court of the United States of America to continue promoting abortion, homosexuality, and removing every vestige of Christianity from the public arena.

Reminiscent isn’t it, of what Senator Minority Leader Reid did when he snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat by backing down the Republican majority over the filibuster fiasco? He howled before the cameras at how much the Democrats had given up to maintain the collegiality and integrity of the Senate and then laughed all the way to his home in the pit of hell.

When will we Christians learn that we cannot depend upon Republicans to fight our Lord’s battles!

Let’s make this absolutely clear. Gonzales is unacceptable. We’ll have more on this later, but briefly: Our objection to him stems from his track record in the Texas death-penalty mill, his memos on torture and the dictatorial president, and the resultant disgrace in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Right wingers’ objection is an offhand comment on stare decesis — and the notion that he somehow hasn’t yet proven his ideologue credentials.