At least, that's what they claimed in the Novembers of 2000 and 2004. In this last election, as in no other, the Court was thought to be vitally important.

In religious right circles, at the grass roots level, there was high excitement that the nation might finally get some Justices in who would roll back the tides of misplaced internationalism, judicial invention, and Supreme legislation that have proven so vexing to those in the heartland trying to raise decent families in an unholy world. Because President Bush is a man of sincere faith, whereas John Kerry was clearly a man of pure opportunism and personal religious hypocrisy ("I believe life begins at conception" did not ring true from a pro-choice politician), prayerful people whose participation in politics is normally limited to election day came out in force to actually work for candidates. Phone banks were filled, neighborhoods were walked, parties were held, and registration drives were pursued by massive numbers of people otherwise uninterested in the process.

All this optimism was based not on who would be the likely nominees, but on who would be the one to pick such nominees--a man whose heart they trusted, George W. Bush.

This, they knew, was the turning point. The president had proven his destiny as Commander-in-Chief by being in position for September 11, and it was now time for God's man or woman (or men or women, or some combination thereof) to take the bench. Prophetic words were given, prayers were sent up, intercessors fasted, and God's people waited to see how long the Lord would wait before shifting the composition of the Court.

They didn't have to wait long. When O'Connor said she wanted to leave, there was much rejoicing (although it was rather irritating to them to see their politically conservative brethren in positions of power lionizing a woman they thought of as an unholy disaster on the bench; still, they accepted it as mere civility, however insincere.) When Roberts was nominated, they embraced him as a strict constructionist who could be trusted to stay that way.

When Justice Rehnquist unexpectedly breathed his last, again there was great anticipation that not one but two justices could be fielded in this term. Despite calls from his allies to promote Scalia or Thomas, or to nominate one of the deep benchers he'd won in hard-fought battles with Congress, the president again confounded pundits by elevating the prior nomination to Chief and looking for a new O'Connor replacement. The Roberts nomination sailed through with little controversy (except the usual gang of idiots from the pro-choice hysteria crowd, Ralph Neas, and a few snotty professors who wouldn't have liked anyone less liberal than Hillary Clinton.) And there was much rejoicing.

Then, as they continued to pray for the president to have the mind of Christ as he prayerfully chose the right person for this season of American jurisprudence--a time when myriad hot-button issues of Christianity and culture are in play as never before--the president woke them up on the first Monday morning in October with his friend, Harriet Miers, by his side.

Now, don't get me wrong. Most Christian conservatives--like most Americans--don't know much about potential court nominees. They've heard the names of judges the Democrats filibustered, and that's about it. As was the case with John Roberts, most ordinary people on the religious right didn't know who she was, since who the White House Counsel is does not generally show up as a prayer concern to any but those immediately involved. What they knew about John Roberts was that the President admired him and he seemed to be a good man, a good father, a Constitutionalist instead of an activist, and the choice of the President for Chief Justice. The religious conservatives, with no particular knowledge of Roberts, immediately got on board. Why? Because they trusted the man who nominated him.

Although Roberts wasn't on the conservative intelligentsia's wish list, the usual gang of conservative pundits quickly found out enough to satisfy them that the non-selection of Edith Jones or Janice Rogers Brown or Michael Luttig hadn't shafted them. (Though Ann Coulter didn't like him, anyway.) Besides, the Democrats were acting like babies already. All the players were on the sides one expected; all was right with the world.

But Miers is a different situation altogether. Conservatives have occasionally wondered who this president really is. Spiritual conservatives wondered if he could be trusted to do the right thing in the face of long odds, or if he would prove to be merely a consummate politician playing the evangelical card to his political advantage. Economic conservatives have worried that he would some day risk conservative political gains for some deep and unknowable spiritual conviction.

Now we know.

Christian conservatives should no longer doubt this president's sincerity. He has made a selection based on a conviction that flies in the face of pragmatic politics, and he is not backing down. He is risking everything to bring in a nominee that he himself believes is the best available choice, despite the objections of politically-minded conservatives and the opposition of those he considers his allies.

The Miers nomination is the Category 5 hurricane that breaks open the levees of conservatism, exposing its deepest divide: that between those who are conservative primarily for intellectual reasons, and those whose conservatism is a habit of the heart. The president has declared his loyalty; he is, above and beyond his economic theories and his powerful defense of the free market, a True Believer.

These disagreements have arisen from time to time, in the divide between the social conservatives longing for more true believers in the Reagan White House and the political pragmatists urging them to be patient; in the rift between the George H.W. Bush New World Order acolytes and the cultural conservationists on Pat Robertson's team; in the tug of war between hard-line fiscal conservatives and open-handed compassionate conservatives willing to spend a little money to prod the resistant into participating in Bush's visionary "ownership society."

Between the two, there are differing definitions and applications of "trust." It might be said that both subscribe to Reagan's sage advice on the Soviet Union, "Trust, but verify,"--but one group considers the trust primary, and the other tends to suspend trust in the hunt for verification.

For Christian conservatives (and I stress here that these are not the people most usually connected to the poltical aspect of the religious right question, but those who view politics as an expression of faith), one's primary (and only absolute) trust belongs to Christ. In this case, they trust Bush because they believe he trusts Christ, as he has consistently maintained since he first lit their political fires by publicly proclaiming his favorite political philosopher to be "Christ, because he changed my heart." Moreover, they trust him more than they do the "verification" conservatives, whom they suspect of harboring less than noble and forgiving feelings toward others, such as liberals.

It is important to a purpose-driven Christian to seek a Biblical response to matters of culture, and to follow that response regardless of its pragmatic consequences. Despite the deaths of 45 million babies as a result of the Roe decision, they are called to forgive all those involved and to seek to change the situation through prayer and repentence, rather than anger and action. Where they have no knowledge, they seek advice from people they trust who do. Quite bluntly, they trust Dobson and Warren more than they do Limbaugh and Coulter. And because Dobson and Warren trust Bush on this, they are more inclined to do so.

For the verification conservatives, stepping out in faith on Bush is a difficult thing because they can't find out enough to assure them their trust is well placed. They don't have the same sense of divine appointment about Bush that non-political conservatives have; they are wedded to this world, and in this world, one is supposed to have certain qualifications and be known to the jury of conservative court-watchers. Ironically, this woman who helped judge those who would be judges as a member of the President's nominating team managed to keep herself unknown to the pundits and pontificators who so praised the results of her coaching. Thus, to them, she does not exist, despite the fact that the president and his nominees relied in part on her to navigate the process in the past.

The conservative intelligentsia sees the President's membership in the social conservative club overshadowing their power to control the dissemination of conservative information, and they are having none of it. They can't accept the notion that the President of the United States might have access to better information concerning Court nominees than they have. They can't handle the idea that when he said "I will nominate candidates to the Supreme Court," he really meant "I" and not "my friends in the conservative think tanks." They can't stand it that, after all this time in the wilderness, they might still be "out of the loop" when it comes to the important questions of the presidency--especially when they find out that a doltish nobody like James Dobson actually had a seat in the "kitchen cabinet" this time around. It wasn't the judicial conservative elite invited to that conference call--it was the evangelicals. And that smarts.

The conservatives who are crying the loudest--and with a venom and a bitterness usually reserved for Ted Kennedy or illegal immigration--do more than anyone else to convince those who trust Dobson and Falwell and Robertson and D. James Kennedy and Marvin Olasky and Dick Cheney and President Bush that the president, leading with his heart, is right on this. There seems to be more than a little "it's not FAIR" in their whining and braying. Though they were in no way owed a consultation, the fact that they did not get one appears to have driven conservative think-tank mavens into paroxyms of rage.

Tsk, tsk. That's no kind of witness for the world.

The President's calm and Miss Miers' quietness are evidence to the Christian conservative right that both are walking in the will of God. They are clearly at peace, even in the midst of the deafening cacophony of conservative pundits demanding answers, withdrawal, or apologies.

The President is the President. He nominates, and the Senate advises and consents. Conservative think-tanks are welcome to give their opinions--but they are opinions, and the President isn't required to follow any of them. Miss Miers is the nominee, and her job will be to present herself honestly before the Senate to be intellectually weighed and measured, to be poked and prodded by reprobates like Ted Kennedy and intellectual gnats like Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer. You can bet (if you do that sort of thing) she'll be prayed up and ready, and we'll see how she does.

For Miers' prayer warriors and armor bearers--Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Rick Warren, and the multiple millions of people who give their testimony great weight and respect--who is on the Court is a matter so monumentally important and far-reaching that it is more important that God be pleased than that they look smart. They don't care if it's someone they've never heard of. God is a master at picking people out of a crowd that no one's ever heard of before. President Bush has a history of going against the grain of popular wisdom, even popular conservative wisdom. He has a tendency to pluck people unexpectedly out of their comfort zone--like John Roberts--and watch them perform with excellence.

This is a "purpose-driven" president, and he has picked a "purpose-driven" nominee, which may be why Rick Warren is so enthusiastically supporting her. When you elected the President, you granted him certain forms of authority. One of those is the right to pick nominees for the Supreme Court. There's nothing in the Constitution that reserves that power to the people. The President is popularly elected, and that election is the end of the people's say in the matter of the Court. The Senate (again, I stress, originally a body of deliberative legislators picked by the states, not elected by the people) has no obligation to even include the people in their advising process. In fact, if they wanted to, they could do it all by email, I suppose. They choose to have hearings, to let witnesses testify, and to take input from their constituents. But they have no obligation to use any of that input in their decision-making. That's how the system works.

Rick Warren is fond of saying, "Remember: God is God, and you're not." The conservatives angry that the president actually had the nerve to exercise the authority they gave him to bring up a nominee that will do what they want her to do would do well to remember that President Bush is President, and they're not.

There is no warranty on the presidency. If he's not what you wanted, it's too late to take it back. If you want someone to follow the conservative party line instead of putting his or her own judgment into play, elect Ann Coulter next time. After all, she's at least as qualified as Hillary, isn't she?