More from Dobson

[MGKrebs]

From a Newsmax email. (My comments in italics.)

Replying to Democrat assertions that top White House official Karl Rove may have revealed to him how Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would vote on Roe v. Wade and other cases that may come before the Court, Dr. James Dobson insists that the subject never came up during their now widely reported phone conversation.

This is changing the subject. We want to know what Rove said that Dobson thought he was not at liberty to disclose.

Dobson had spoken to Rove the weekend before President Bush announced his selection of Harriet Miers, and Dobson suggested he had received confidential information about Miers.

It wasn't just suggested. That is what he said.

On Tuesday night, Dobson released the trancript for his upcoming commentaries for his Focus on the Family radio broadcast, which is set to air Wednesday and Thursday.

In his commentary, Dr. Dobson noted that he has been "a topic of conversation from the nation's Capitol to the tiniest burg and farming community."

The cause of that interest, he said, has been his "conversation with Deputy White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, that occurred on October 1st, just a few days ago. And that was the day before President Bush made his decision to nominate White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court."

That conversation has sparked wild speculation about the topics he discussed with Rove. The result he said has been "members of the Judiciary committee who are running from one talk show to another, threatening to subpoena me to find out what occurred in that conversation with Karl Rove. And I am going to make their job easier ... I'm gonna tell them what I would say to them if I were sitting before the Judiciary committee."

Dobson said he has been freed by Karl Rove to report what had passed between them. Dr. Dobson set the stage for his revelation by recalling that a few hours after President Bush announced his decision on Monday morning October 3rd, "many conservative Christian leaders were involved in a conference call, wherein some of those men and women were expressing great disillusionment with President Bush's decision, and there was a lot of anger over his failure to select someone with a proven track record in the courts."

Oh good! He has been released to spill the beans!

"And I came in a little bit late and I caught just a bit of that angst and then I shared my opinion, that Harriet Miers might well be more in keeping with our views than they might think. and that I did believe that she was a far better choice than many of my colleagues were saying and that they obviously believed."

Dr. Dobson then explained why alone among his colleagues he supported the nomination, revealing that Karl Rove had shared with him her judicial philosophy which he says "was consistent with the promises that President Bush had made when he was campaigning."

At that time Dr. Dobson reports President Bush "told the voters last year that he would select people to be on the Court who would interpret the law rather than create it and judges who would not make social policy from the bench. Most of all, the President promised to appoint people who would uphold the Constitution and not use their powers to advance their own political agenda. Now, Mr. Rove assured me in that telephone conversation that Harriet Miers fit that description and that the President knew her well enough to say so with complete confidence."

Wait a minute. That's it? That's the end? The conversation that you felt you were not at liberty to repeat until "freed" to do so, was a reminder of a Bush campaign stump speech? Hmmph. We wouldn't have been exaggerating a little bit, now were we Jimmy? Or are we perhaps straying from the actual facts here a little, eh? I think we just may need to send you to the principles office, err, I mean the CONGRESS and get you UNDER OATH and listen to your story again. Won't that be fun?

[atommom]

1. What really infuriates me is that this wacko's opinion is considered

so damned important in nominating a SCOTUS judge. What qualifies him to have this kind of influence?

[MGKrebs]

2. My understanding is (via Geoge Lakoff),

that Dobson is not only a religious leader, but also the philosophical 'father' of the so-called 'strong father' model, vs. the more liberal/progressive 'nurturing family' model. I think it can be said that much of the neocon/world domination/Iraq war/tax cuts for the rich/let New Orleans perish mentality stems from this philosophical point of view.

As distasteful as it is, I have come to believe that he is among the top 20 most influential people in the US right now.

[atommom]

3. Dobson's "strong father" is an abusive thug ... his status as a father

figure says a lot about the confusion conservatives have about what kind of behavior constitutes strength, and what kind of treatment a father figure should subject his family (the nation) to.

[MGKrebs]

4. That, my friend, is well said.