C'est moi, dammit!

Your blogstress was much amused to find yet another reference to her American Prospect piece on John Roberts, this time by the eminent scholar George Weigel on a Web site called Tidings. Weigel writes:

Shortly after Judge Roberts' nomination, President Bush was accused of "playing the Catholic card" in an opinion piece widely circulated in the blogosphere. "Playing the Catholic card" is, to be frank, either a vulgar appeal to ancient prejudices or code-language for "someone who can't be trusted to take Planned Parenthood's position on abortion."

Well, Mr. Weigel, if you're going to bandy about accusations of vulgarity, it is only fair to credit the blogstress with her craft.

Another curiosity of Weigel's piece, written in the form of "An open letter to Patrick Leahy" (the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee), is his apparent lifting of central argument from a press statement issued by the far less eloquent William Donohue of the Catholic League, the first to tar your favorite bad Catholic girl as an anti-Catholic bigot. Here's Donohue:

"Now let's apply this logic to President Clinton's selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer for the Supreme Court. Did he do so because he liked 'Playing the Jewish card'? And did he do so because he wanted his critics to be seen as anti-Semites?

And Weigel:

Consider what would have happened if, after nominating Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court, President Clinton had been accused of "playing the Jewish card"? Suppose the Associated Press had run a news story in these terms: "Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Jew, once wrote an ACLU legal brief on the constitutional status of Roe v. Wade"? There would have been outrage, and it would have been wholly justified.

Your blogstress notes that gentlemanly Mr. Weigel sits on the Catholic League's board of advisors. Could it be that is he who supplies the words that spew forth from the mouth of the most intemperate Mr. Donohue?