Editorial: Bush speaks out, finally

Monday, May 2, 2005 | 9:20 a.m.

During the past several weeks the religious right and some social conservatives have inflamed the political standoff between Democrats and Republicans over President Bush's nominees for federal judges. They have gone so far as to make outrageous claims that Democratic senators who have favored a filibuster to prevent some of Bush's nominees from being confirmed have done so because of hostility toward religion. "What they (Democrats) have done is, they have targeted people for reasons of their faith or moral position," Tony Perkins, the head of the right-wing Family Research Council, told The New York Times two weeks ago. The Family Research Council organized the previous weekend's nationwide telecast in which conservative religious leaders excoriated Democrats for threatening judicial filibusters. That same telecast, called "Justice Sunday," featured rema rks by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who effectively gave his imprimatur to this demagoguery.

On Thursday, during a news conference, President Bush was asked about this controversy, specifically about Perkins' statement that Democratic judicial filibusters were an attack against people of faith. Bush responded that Democrats were objecting to his nominees for reasons other than religion. "I think people are opposing my nominees because they don't like the judicial philosophy of the people I've nominated," Bush said. "I don't ascribe a person's opposing my nominations to an issue of faith. ... I am mindful that people in political office should not say to somebody, you're not equally American if you don't happen to agree with my view of religion."

The president was right on the mark in stressing tolerance and putting to rest the phony issue that Democrats were hostile to religion. One problem we have with the president on this issue isn't what he said Thursday, but that he waited so long to say it -- almost two weeks after the religious right started calling Democrats anti-religious. The president didn't speak out until Frist's pandering to the religious right created a political backlash. Real leadership is taking on religious intolerance as soon as it arises, even when it comes from your own political base.