The Christofascist Zombie Brigade wants its pound of flesh

The wingnuts are calling in all their markers now, and the White House seems to think it can manage the marauding hordes:

The White House and the Senate Republican leadership are pushing back against pressure from some of their conservative allies about the coming Supreme Court nomination, urging them to stop attacking Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales as a potential nominee and to tone down their talk of a culture war.

In a series of conference calls on Tuesday and over the last several days, Republican Senate aides encouraged conservative groups to avoid emphasizing the searing cultural issues that social conservatives see at the heart of the court fight, subjects like abortion, public support for religion and same-sex marriage, participants said.

[snip]

Gary Bauer, president of American Values and a Christian conservative candidate for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, said, "A lot of people feel that the administration shouldn't be reluctant to talk about the values we hope the nominee will embrace."

"If all my side does is talk about process - 'we want a fair hearing, etc.' - while Ted Kennedy is talking about 'we are not going to let somebody on the court who is going to take away the rights of individuals,' as silly as I think that is, it will affect the way people think about the battle," Mr. Bauer said.

Tom Minnery, director of public policy for Focus on the Family, an evangelical group and broadcaster based in Colorado Springs, blamed leftist advocates for the "decibel level" of judicial confirmation debates and said his group planned to continue to address mainly social and cultural issues "to get our constituents to understand how important this battle is."

Officials of several Christian conservative groups, who did not want to be identified because of what they said was pressure by the White House, said they were continuing to urge the president not to nominate Mr. Gonzales.

Tuesday evening, Focus on the Family transmitted an e-mail message to supporters with the title, "Bush Defends Gonzales. Some conservatives wonder if attorney general is right for Supreme Court."

Other groups circulated a statement from a prominent opponent of abortion rights, C. J. Willkie, describing what he said were private statements from Mr. Gonzales on the subject in an effort to discredit him further with social conservatives.

The Administration still doesn't get it. They still understand that the Christian right's agenda is about three things: sex, sex, and sex. It's about eliminating any kind of autonomy women might have over their own bodies, eliminating any kind of sexual content from popular entertainment, and about eliminating gays from the social discourse altogether.

A reversal of Roe v. Wade would be the Republicans' worst nightmare. There are plenty of red-state women who have gone to the very same abortion clinics that they give lip service to wanting to abolish. Roe gives Republicans the ability to give lip service to the fetal-primacy movement without having to deal with the consequences of declaring every fertilized egg to be a person. Without Roe, reality kicks in with a vengeance, and that's not nearly as good for Republicans as being able to jawbone the issue to death without doing anything about it.

If Gonzales is, in fact, the front-runner for the nomination, it indicates two things: It's an indication that Bush feels no obligation to serve anything other than his own personal interests in naming a nominee, given that Gonzales is a long-time friend and the perfect company man; and it means that he duped his own base just as much as he duped the rest of us.

I myself happen to think that Gonzales, as odious as he is, is about as good as we're going to get. As I've said before, the time to address the Supreme Court issue was last November. And when our candidate blew it then, the game was already lost.