| Wednesday, October 12, 2005 |
| The candidate of last resort? |
According to the Los Angeles Times, Harriet Miers may have been Bush/Andy Card's Court selection more out of necessity than choice. According to the paper, in his briefing to James Dobson, Karl Rove told the evangelical leader that having already decided to give Laura a female nominee, the president was left with fewer choices, and that some of the ladies on the White House short list took themselves out of contention -- not wanting to be nominated for fear of the "vicious, vitriolic" confirmation process. The Times quotes an advance transcript of Dobson's Wednesday radio show:
"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." We did hear from the RW blogosphere that Priscilla Owen bowed out just days before Miers' name was dropped like a lead balloon on Bush's supporters, but the press at the time portrayed Edith Jones as an eternal bridesmaid, not someone who wanted to be out of contention.
More of what Dobson was reportedly told, via the LA Times/AP:
On a radio show being broadcast Wednesday, Dobson said he discussed Miers with
Rove on Oct. 1, two days before her nomination was announced. Dobson said Rove
told him "she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally
pro-life," but denied he had gotten any assurances from the White House that she
would vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Whatever the case, I think it's becoming clearer and clearer that Mr. Dobson needs to testify under oath before the Senate, as does Karl Rove...
Tags: Supreme Court, Politics, SCOTUS, Law, News, Harriet Miers |
posted by JReid @ 12:58 PM   |
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