At the Supreme Court level, Bush has been careful to appoint judges who at least have the patina of fairness about them. Thus, we were given John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito. Both have turned out to be unstellar nominees, a lot like Antonin Scalia but with less sarcasm.

Nominees to the lower federal courts tend to receive less scrutiny from the media and the public - and it's here Bush has tried to stack the bench with some real doozies.

Consider Honaker. He believes abortion is murder and that biblical law should trump the secular law. He said in one speech, "I came to know that if the Bible is true, if Christianity is true, then it is true in family life. It is true in economics. It is true in law, and it is true in all facets of human endeavor. I know that with only such a world view can Christians have any impact upon the culture around them."

Speaking before convention of homeschoolers in Wyoming in 2005, Honaker said, "[I]f taught accurately, history can teach us that the greatest American patriots and leaders were Christians, and that there is indeed a Christian basis for American institutions of law, government, and business." In the same address, he attacked the Supreme Court because it "no longer talks about America as a Christian nation or about the Christian underpinnings of the law."

Questioned about these rather unusual views, Honaker replied that no one should worry. A higher court could always step in and overrule him. "The losing party [could] appeal to the Tenth Circuit, and perhaps on to the United States Supreme Court, and nobody would remember what the trial judge did anyhow," he said.

Honaker's nomination has been pending for about a year. It has not improved with age. A nomination like this is little more than an insult to the Constitution. It's the sort of the thing the Senate should not even bother to take seriously. The Senate Judiciary Committee should reject Honaker's nomination and insist that Bush name someone to the post who understands and respects the need for religious diversity in America.

There is simply no reason to allow Bush, a man with a 30 percent approval rating whose policies have proven to be not just misguided but disastrous, to continue to stack our courts with religious extremists.