Laurie, let me begin with you. The election of 2004 seemed to give many religious conservatives a new sense of their power. Politically, what do you expect from that group in the year to come?
LAURIE GOODSTEIN (Religion Writer, THE NEW YORK TIMES): I think you'll see an increasing assertiveness both on the national level and on the local level from religious conservatives of all kinds, not just evangelicals but also those conservative Catholics and conservative Jews, in particular Orthodox Jews who've formed an alliance with evangelicals on all kinds of issues, everything from stem cell research and abortion, euthanasia, and also what their concern is -- a coarsening of the culture. So I think everywhere that conservative religious folks have been training people and preparing leaders to go into politics, both at the local level and the national level, you're going to see those people stepping forward and pushing their issues.ABERNETHY: And Caryle, what do expect to see as a result of all of this on Capitol Hill?
CARYLE MURPHY (Religion Writer, THE WASHINGTON POST): Well, I expect to see more efforts to promote the faith-based initiative, where federal money is given to religious groups to do social services. And I think that there will be certainly legislation on Capitol Hill to deal with all the moral, ethical issues that Laurie mentioned. And then, finally, definitely there's going to be a real energizing of the conservative Christian forces when and if there is a judicial nominee to the Supreme Court.
ABERNETHY: E. J., if a vacancy opens up on the court, what kind of person would you expect the president to nominate, and what would you see as the consequences of that?
E. J. DIONNE (Columnist, THE WASHINGTON POST and Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution): I think we can fearlessly predict that this person will be a conservative. The president has said that his models -- he said in the 2000 campaign -- that his models were Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. There are different kinds of conservatives, however, and I think the religious and moral issues may submerge what I think is an emerging debate, and it's a really important debate, over whether you are going to see a new version of conservative judicial activism, which is aimed at constricting the power of Congress and state legislatures to act in areas such as disability rights or the environment or labor protections.I also think you are going to see something happening on the Democratic side. Caryle mentioned the faith-based initiative. Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman have always been interested in this. One is hearing that Senator Harry Reid, the new Democratic leader, is also interested. So you may see an alternative approach to cooperation between government and religious organizations in lifting up the poor. And I think that would be a very interesting debate, if the Democrats actually offered their own model for this sort of activity.
ABERNETHY: Caryle, let me turn to the Middle East, especially Iraq. Elections scheduled for later in January?
Ms. MURPHY: That's right.
ABERNETHY: What do you expect to see?
Ms. MURPHY: Well, if the elections do proceed as scheduled, I think this is definitely going to produce a Shiite-dominated government. And this would be a government that's charged with writing a new constitution. But the important thing for that new government will be how do they reach out, and will they reach out to the Sunni minority to bring them in, if the Sunnis don't participate in the election? And some Sunni clerics have called for them to boycott it. Because what we don't want -- and there are a lot of fears that could happen -- is that this will degenerate into a civil war, a Sunni-Shia civil war.ABERNETHY: Suppose a Shia majority is elected and writes a constitution and then governs in a way that is bad news for women and bad news for religious minorities. What would the reaction to that be back here, E. J., in this country?
Mr. DIONNE: Not good. I think there would be a sort of, a lot of gnashing of teeth and saying, "Well, what exactly did our intervention lead to?" But I think there is an alternative. The Shia, I think, in Iraq are very conscious that while they are a majority there, the Shia in the rest of the Arab Middle East are a minority. So they're going to have to create a kind of model for pluralism in Iraq, I think, partly to protect their brethren elsewhere. The other thing is, we talk as if there's one giant Shia bloc in Iraq and you know -- as if there were, say, a large Christian bloc in the U.S. and not all the divergences that you have within the Christian community. And so, I think, one of the steps toward pluralism would be the development of a number of parties or political tendencies within Shiism in Iraq. And I think that's a real possibility.
Ms. GOODSTEIN: Well, this is a very big concern for Israel, because the precedent, of course, is divestment from South Africa that helped bring pressure on that government and ultimately led to the downfall of the white government in South Africa. The Presbyterian Church is concerned about what they have seen in Israel, what has happened to the Palestinians. And that's why they are trying to exert some force here through a divestment campaign. But it's not at all clear that it's going to come to pass. There are divisions in the Presbyterian Church. But other mainline Christian denominations are looking at the Presbyterian example and discussing among themselves. They also have concerns about what they have seen in Israel. And they're looking at whether this is something that they should follow as an example.
Ms. MURPHY: It's a very distressed, dejected community, and I think they have -- there are two things to watch as the next year rolls by, and that is how are they going to respond or reorganize themselves politically after having, you know, come out against Bush, and then having him elected -- to how they are going to renew ties with the administration. And then, theologically, there's a lot going on among Muslims in the United States on how to reinterpret their religion to make it more accommodating to American modernity. And there are some interesting events happening there.
