The standards for evaluating President Bush's Supreme Court nominees are becoming more muddled with each passing day. What's surprising is that the nomination waters are being roiled by the political right, not by the left.

Conservatives have been claiming for years that they don't all think alike. It took the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court to prove the point.

When President Bush nominated John G. Roberts Jr. to the high court in July, many conservatives argued that people should just trust the President, approve his choice and not pester the nominee with specific questions about his beliefs.

But when the President nominated Miers, some of the same people complained that the President was asking them to trust him. They wanted proof, for example, that Miers is committed to the antiabortion movement. "President Bush is asking us to have faith in things unseen. We only have that kind of faith in God," said Texas Eagle Forum president Cathie Adams.

When Bush nominated Roberts, a Catholic, conservatives said it was unfair to question a nominee about his religion. "We have no religious tests for public office in this country," said Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas).

But when the President nominated Miers, some conservatives needed assurances that she is an evangelical Christian. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson said presidential adviser Karl Rove lobbied him by saying Miers "is an evangelical Christian; that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life." The President has underlined Miers' religion in public statements since. Even this flaunting of faith hasn't satisfied some of Miers' detractors.

When the President nominated Roberts, many conservatives argued that the Senate should not pry into his views on issues. "No senator has a right to insist on his or her own issue-by-issue philosophy, or to seek commitments from the nominee on specific litmus-test questions likely to come before the court," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa). "To do so is to give in to the liberal interest groups that only want judges who will do their political bidding."

But when the President nominated Miers, other conservatives pushed for a full airing of her views. Activist Gary Bauer told followers, "All that should matter to us is if at least five [justices], no matter what their sex, understand that nothing in our Constitution requires us to permit a million unborn children to be destroyed every year, that our founding document doesn't mandate same-sex 'marriage,'..."

Guess what? It's not only liberal-interest groups that want judges to do their political bidding from the bench. On each side of the political spectrum, people yearn for activist judges - just as long as the activism apes their partisan viewpoint.

Before Miers' forthcoming confirmation hearing drowns in hypocrisy, let's remember that the process staked out for Roberts worked reasonably well. He was not forced to predict how he would rule on specific cases, but the public got a fair understanding of how his mind works, how he approaches the law and the job of judging.

No one should pronounce final judgment on Miers' fitness for the high court until she undergoes the same process. She deserves the same level of scrutiny as Roberts, not a review subject to shifting suspicions and arguments of convenience.

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