OVER THE WEEKEND Bill Keller of the New York Times pumped out a column dumping on three lame-duck Senators, all Republicans--Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, and Phil Gramm. For Keller, it's more than time for them to go.

I don't happen to share Keller's thoroughly downbeat assessment of the careers of this trio. But what's notable about his piece is a term he uses. Keller's fundamental complaint about Helms, Gramm, and Thurmond is "that they harnessed their collective century of seniority to the Taliban wing of the America right." Note the words--"the Taliban wing."

Keller isn't the first to speak of this wing, and I've been wondering just who's in it. From what I can tell, the answer is that no one is, save the Maryland-born John Walker, now detained by U.S. forces, who told CNN that his "heart became attached to the Taliban"; and Wadih el Hage, the naturalized American (a Lebanon native) who served Osama bin Laden as his personal assistant and was sentenced for life for conspiring to bomb the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.

You'd think that to locate someone in some "Taliban wing" would require close attention to the facts about that person, most of all whether the person understands the relationship of religion and politics in the same way as Osama bin Laden does. And bin Laden sees the two as inseparable. For him, a religion (Islam) is understood in extreme terms that require the subordination of the state to it--meaning that religion is to rule all. At his sentencing in a Manhattan courtroom three months ago, el Hage reflected his leader's views on this matter when he said that Islam "has this complete set of rules and guidelines for a successful, prosperous and happy life on . . . earth."

Associating American conservatives with the Taliban is done for obvious purpose--to cast the former into outer political darkness. But there is no basis for the association--bin Laden's views have no resonance here, save for with the likes of a Walker or an el Hage. It is an ugly smear, and it ought not to be indulged.

Terry Eastland is publisher of The Weekly Standard.