What Dobson knows about Miers — Day Three

October 6, 2005

To briefly review, James Dobson raised a few eyebrows this week by announcing his immediate support for Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination. After talking to Karl Rove, Dobson defended his decision by saying, “Some of what I know I am not at liberty to talk about.”

Slowly but surely, the comment is developing into a legitimate controversy. Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) wants to know what Dobson knows. There are rumors that Senate Dems may call Dobson to testify at Miers’ hearing to flesh out what kind of secrets Karl Rove may have told him. Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) even brought up Dobson’s remark when visiting with Miers in his office yesterday.

Democrats, delighted by the division on the right, pushed Ms. Miers to repudiate assurances about her views that the administration has reportedly made through private conversations or closed conference calls with conservatives. “No Supreme Court nomination should be conducted by winks and nods,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Referring to statements by the evangelical conservative James C. Dobson that he had been given confidential information about Ms. Miers’s views, Mr. Leahy said: “I asked her about that specifically. I said, ‘Has anybody been authorized to speak on your behalf or have you spoken to anybody about how you would vote?’ She assured me, ‘Absolutely not.’

“I said, ‘Would you disavow anybody who send out assurances that they know how you would vote?’ She said, ‘Absolutely.’ “

Fortunately for his critics, Dobson seems intent on making matters even more interesting. Instead of backing away from his remarks and/or suggesting they’ve been blown out of proportion, Dobson told his national radio audience yesterday that his support for Miers nomination is based on “confidential” information.

On the October 5 broadcast of his nationally syndicated Focus on the Family radio program, James C. Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, cited “confidential” information that he had been “privy to” in explaining “why, at this moment … I believe George Bush has made an outstanding selection” in his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Referring to “confidential conversations and contacts” and claiming that he had “talked at length to people that know her,” Dobson vouched that Miers is a “deeply committed Christian.”

Dobson is literally broadcasting a claim that the White House told him secrets about Miers that bolster the contention that she’ll be a reliable conservative. As a rule, it’s hard to appreciate Dobson’s strategies — he’s quite mad, you know — but it’s almost as if he’s daring Dems to go after him.

Note to Dems: call his bluff. At a minimum, exposing the too-close-for-comfort relationship between the White House and the Taliban-wing of the GOP has a big political upside.

I wouldn’t put it past him to refuse to testify before comittee because he ‘answers to a higher authority.’ Remember, people like this have a martyr complex, he would love to go to jail.

  • I wouldn’t be surprised, given theflurry of right-wing nutjob attacks on Miers, if she simply withdraws herself from consideration, thus freeing Georgie Boy to find a genuine Scalia clone for confirmation.

  • The Senate should call Rove to testify. He was the one that provided the information after all (sound familiar??). If it’s good enough to share with Dobson, it should be good enough to share with the Senate and the American people.

    Why does Karl Rove hate America?

  • Note to Dems: call his bluff. At a minimum, exposing the too-close-for-comfort relationship between the White House and the Taliban-wing of the GOP has a big political upside.

    Abso-freakin’-lutely! Call in Dobson *and* Rove to testify in committee. Get them under oath.

  • Classic strategy on how to deal with a potential troublemaker when you’re trying to do a backroom deal – put the troublemaker into the loop. This co-ops the troublemaker – they are so delighted to be at the grownup table that they’ll do your bidding.

    Trouble here is Dobson is a little too delighted – and can’t stop himself from bragging about it. I’m thinking it has to do with the inherent competition between these Christian-right leaders. “Look at me – I got to sit at the cool table – I got the inside line!!!”

    Yeah – the Dems have got to call him to testify. Should be fun…thekeez

  • Miers was assigned the task of finding potential supreme court nominees. Evidently, she failed to find any good prospects since W decided to nominate her as the best possible candidate.

    The Miers nomination should be opposed on any number of sound principles: a clear lack of qualifications, close association with an administration beset with corruption and the target of several criminal investigations, and now the taint that the appointment has conservative support based on insider information that will not be shared with the senate.

    I sincerely hope that the Dems don’t give her a pass because the alternative might be worse. She is not qualified, so vote no. If the Republicans put her on the court, then the blame will fall on them.

  • I used to be worried about Shrub nominating a Scalia nutcase to replace a withdrawn Miers, and now I way, “BRING ‘EM ON!”. We aren’t in a position of strength, but we are certainly on much more solid ground now than we were a year ago. I think if Cheney wants to nominate clowns, we can put them to work for us in a nice media circus.

    In the 80’s we shot down Bork, then Ginsburg, and finally got Kennedy. That was three nominees the Senate burned through for one nomination! It took a long time but it was well worth the effort– Kennedy’s not bad considering he was a Reagan appointee. So watching Chimpy and Darth parade a bunch of Brownies or Bernie Keriks in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee over the next 6 months, is a big win for us. It only makes the Repugs look like the corrupt scumfucks they are.

    Getting a radical cleric to sit before a Senate subcommittee under oath would be PR gold.

    The wingnuts can only lose. Dobson pleads the 5th, or clams up, or refuses to testify and gets jailed, it’s all good. Or he talks and tries to make himself look important, and exposes his cozy relationship with the Cheney administration and the theocracy within the Repug establishment. There is no way for Rove to win on this. Plus, he’s too busy meeting with his defense lawyers right now, to really pay attention and prep Dobson properly. That means a potential big score for us. This is nice.

    Folks, I am delighted with the way the Democratic party is handling this kind of thing these days. Just keep the pressure on, turn the pressure up, from every angle, and force the entire Norquist Wednesday-morning-breakfast coalition of God, Guns, and Greed (religious fanatics, warmongering neocons, and the ultra-rich corporate cronies) to implode. The Repugs are beginning to fight amongst themselves, make tactical mistakes, run scared, and all we need to do is stand firm and keep pressuring them from every possible angle, over the long term, and they will eventually crumble. The more pressure we put on them, the more likely they are to turn on each other in a desperate and selfish grab for survival, and produce a circular firing squad. This is the way to win. It is the way they destroyed us in the Reagan years, and it is now their turn. Revenge is sweet. No mercy… I can taste it.

  • The thing about Mr. Dobson, the chief mullah of the American Taliban, is that at the deepest level he is truly a fool. Oh, he’s immoral, ruthless and obsessed with power which has given him a certain amount of success, but he’s still a fool at heart.

    He’s fine as long as he’s dealing with his own cowed followers or like-minded politicians who want to use him for their own purposes, but let him get in deep water with folks he can’t control and he starts coming apart at the seams, begging God to send him a sign because he has no f***ing clue on his own.

    Please, please, please, you Dems, put a subpoena on him. Put him in front of a Senate panel and you’ll see the biggest meltdown since Chernobyl. And he’ll take a whole posse of Bush cronies with him using nothing more than his own genetic stupidity.

  • Something Iam surprised no one mentioned is Dobson’s comment, “…Miers is a “deeply committed Christian” — is he signaling to his base she will break down the wall between church & state? She is an evangelical … whether or not it is the far right or more moderate is unknown at this time. Regardless that does not qualify her to become a SCOTUS Justice.

    I fully appreciated mathguy’s remarks. One other thing maybe not well-known except basically in Texas — she has been involved in a couple of scandals — more on the perimeter, nevertheless it taints or questions her character. Another troubling thing is she has been with bush since he was governor texas. She is a devoted bush loyalist hence what are her views of executive power.

    I do not mind so much one having not been a judge as much as i do the aforementioned. There is nothing which suggests she is anywhere near prepared to handle such important decisions that affect every facet of our lives. Her beliefs are one thing, but will her faith interfere with her rulings?

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