Catholics for Obama?

Professor Doug Kmiec drank the Kool-Aid. Swept off his feet by Obama's soaring rhetoric, he suggested recently in Slate that sincere Catholics might defect from the Republican party to vote for Obama. He elaborated yesterday: "Unless you gave up TV for the duration of the writers’ strike or something shorter, such as Lent, the Ronald Reagan comparison is obvious. Obama’s eloquence and inspiration is inescapable." It is difficult to avoid wondering with Kmiec's correspondents what substance he has been abusing.

The inestimable Professor Robert George brings the Obamabats back to earth.

There are many injustices in our country. None can compare, however, with abortion and embryo-destructive research when it comes to the gravity and sheer scale of the injustice. We are talking about life and death here in huge numbers. Indeed, the scope of the killing itself tends to numb our sense of the horror of it. We think about it as little as we can, for understandable reasons. It is hard to get through the day if we focus our minds squarely on the thousands of deliberate and legally authorized killings that go on every day in our nation. (The same was true for opponents of slavery in the 19th century.) But, as I see it, there is no avoiding our moral obligation to make this profound violation of human rights central to our deliberations as voters. If we were the victims, we would expect others to make the protection of our lives central to their decision about voting. So, as I see it, the implications of the Golden Rule are clear. The question for each of us is whether we are willing to live by it.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

UPDATE: A friend emails: "I wonder what tune Kmiec will be singing once HRC wins the nomination (and she will win the nomination, no doubt. Last night gave her just enough room to make a push all the way to the convention)."

That calls to mind a funny image. I picture a grizzled Doug Kmiec holding a 2/3-empty wisky bottle, staring under half-closed eyelids at his TV screen as Hillary accepts the party's nomination at the Democratic convention. So much for a Supreme Court seat. Hillary's never going to appoint him. And now he's assured that no Republican will get away with doing so. The base would rise up with greater force than even Harriet Miers aroused.

If you shoot at the King, be sure not to miss. Kmiec's bullet is still on the way, but it appears that the Republican party just might escape the line of fire.

Let me add that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Professor Kmiec. I am confident that his insanity is temporary and that he will someday awake from his Obama-induced stupor with regret.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A third august Catholic law prof weighs in, and he is pulling no punches. Rick Garnett of Notre Dame faults Kmiec for his "misguided" support for Obama. The money quote:

First, I have no idea what Kmiec means when he suggests that both sides should stop treating the Court like a political “sinecure”, i.e., an office that requires little or no work and that usually provides an income. If he means that “both sides” should stop treating the question of Supreme Court appointments as such an important one, because our Nation’s most pressing moral questions should not be decided by unelected federal judges, well, then I can only assume that my friend Doug Kmiec is being held hostage someplace and that an alien unfamiliar with the Supreme Court’s history for the past 50 years is penning op-eds in his name.