I cannot help but recognize typical strategy: "you asshole liberals shortened the list with your feeding frenzy antics" -style blame from Mr. Dobson.
Our head scratching was wishful thinking. Direct your attention to Pennsylvania's own: Arlen Specter in a strange departure. I'd love to know what some of you think of that aspect.
Christian Leader Says He Was Told of Miers' Beliefs
By Maura Reynolds
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 12 October 2005
Washington - Before President Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, called influential Christian leader James C. Dobson to assure him that Miers was a conservative evangelical Christian, Dobson said in remarks scheduled for broadcast today on his national radio show.
In that conversation, which has been the subject of feverish speculation, Rove also told Dobson that one reason the president was passing over better-known conservatives was that many on the White House short list had asked not to be considered, Dobson said, according to an advance transcript of the broadcast provided by his organization, Focus on the Family.
Dobson said that the White House had decided to nominate a woman, which reduced the size of the list, and that several women on it had then bowed out.
"What Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it," Dobson said, according to the transcript.
Dobson said that he and Rove did not discuss Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established a woman's right to end a pregnancy, or how Miers might judge abortion-related cases.
"I did not ask that question," Dobson said. "You know, to be honest, I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade. But even if Karl had known the answer to that - and I'm certain that he didn't, because the president himself said he didn't know - Karl would not have told me that. That's the most incendiary information that's out there, and it was never part of our discussion."
In conference calls to other conservatives last week, Dobson had mentioned that he and Rove had talked privately before the Oct. 3 nomination, leading to speculation that he had been provided assurances about Miers' views and convictions.
In recent days, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, had said that he would consider issuing a subpoena for Dobson to appear before the committee to discuss those assurances.
In his radio broadcast, Dobson said that though the information Rove provided on Miers was private at the time of the conference calls, it has since been reported from other sources and that Rove had agreed he could share it publicly.
According to Dobson, that information included "that Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian; that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life; that she had taken on the American Bar Assn. on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion; [and] that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life."
Miers' personal views on abortion have been the focus of much concern on the right and the left. As president of the Texas Bar Assn., she contended that local chapters should be allowed a voice in American Bar Assn. positions on national controversies such as abortion, but she did not say whether she was personally against abortion rights.
8 comments:
Harriet Miers just got scarier than her picture. Not only does she have the stamp of approval from medieval theocrat James Dobson, she's a member of texas Right To Life, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Yes Lew! I find that to be a strange irony in the 'death row" state! I guess the criteria for the highest court in the land is relatively, um, easy to meet. Bushco. has this strange habit of picking agency heads and justices with little experience that barely meet minimum standards. Dobson will have us believe that we harassed the 'more experienced' candidates off the list with our relentless hostility.
Does he mean... the fact that it matters to some people how judges apply law, and the Constitution? Does he mean the idea that appointees be held to a standard of competence? Does he mean the fact that the liberal left expresses opposition to the notion of stacking the court with proxies of the right wing theocentric agenda? I find the notion of separation of Church and State to be somehow at odds with the notion of selecting people based on their tendency toward the opposite... somehow the person who can best spit on the constitution becomes its protector?
Dobson's response strikes me as particularly childish. "Well, the ones we REALLY wanted wouldn't accept because of YOU MEANIES!" What a dolt.
During Roberts' confirmation, anyone inquiring about his religious views was attacked for it. "Religion has nothing to do with it!" they claimed. Yeah, right.
Now, these very same critics have no qualms whatsoever about pointing to Miers' religion in justification of her nomination.
How do people NOT see through this??
Lily,
But that's the magic of the religious right's view: They don't acknowledge the concept of church & state separation, so any conflicts they might have with it are irrelevant. Isn't that convenient?
Well even in second grade I learned about these pilgrims and rebels that came here for religious freedom, and in America we supposedly put forth the idea that there are certain rights that are universal, and the intent of law and in turn government is to uphold those rights and provide for the general welfare and common defense..it is just an incredulous leap to me to be having these conversations about how much Miers may or may not be able to contradict these founding principles. I recall learning these terms like "checks and balances" and thinking they had some relevance. Nostalgia- sigh. We certainly want to make a distinction between religion and the state when it comes to other countries now, don't we?
If the RR has their way, particularly with their homeschooling intitatives and their attack on public school curriculum, what we learned in second grade will be stripped from the minds of future generations, glory be to god hallelujah amen.
Some ominous shit you just depressed me with.
Sorry, dear. You know how I can't give these people the benefit of the doubt.
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