Right Minded Online

On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down perhaps the worst decision it has rendered in some time. In Kelo v. City of New London, the court, in a 5-4 split, gave its blessing to local governments that use the power of eminent domain to seize the property of landowners and turn that property over to private developers. In doing so, the justices rejected a challenge by homeowners in New London, Connecticut who fought the city’s plan to seize their property for a private project.

The Kelo ruling completely ignores the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states, in part, “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Certainly, private development can in no way be construed as public use without a complete re-definition of words. That Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Kennedy, Souter, and Stevens completely disregarded the explicit language of the Constitution illustrates the need for judges who will interpret that document strictly as it is written. Indeed, when judges take it upon themselves to re-write laws, individual rights tend to be undermined.

Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., who is running for the Senate in 2006, was a guest on Teddy Bart’s Roundtable four days later where he made the following remark about the Kelo ruling: “I’ve always believed individual rights are a big thing…but I find value in the court’s decision. As long as people are compensated fairly, I can appreciate the decision. Certain areas in our state are crying for development. If this decision helps — it’s a positive.”

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation (HR3058) exactly one week after Kelo that would deny federal funds to any city or state project that uses eminent domain to force people to sell their property for private development. The vote was 231-189, with 192 Republicans voting for the bill, and 157 Democrats voting against. Congressman Ford voted against this legislation.

Meanwhile, Ford was hammered by bloggers as word of his Kelo endorsement spread around the Internet. On July 8, the Chattanooga Times Free Press blistered Ford, as well. Ford responded two days later with an op/ed of his own which began “Let me be clear: I support the rights of homeowners and business owners.”

As the website Blogging for Bryant noted on July 11, “Harold Ford Jr.’s reasoning on the Kelo decision…is straight out of the John Kerry ‘I voted for it, before I voted against it’ playbook.”

On July 12, Ford continued his damage control by responding to a series of questions posed to all Senate candidates by blogger and journalist Bill Hobbs. There, Ford asserted “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s decision goes too far because it fails to denote the critical difference between rehabilitation with the consent of property owners on the one hand and development solely for corporate profit on the other.” Remember that only two weeks earlier Ford had remarked “As long as people are compensated fairly, I can appreciate the decision.”

Ford’s damage control tour stopped by the Lebanon Democrat on July 18, in which his anti-Kelo piece appeared on this editorial page. Know that without the fallout following his Roundtable appearance, such an editorial would never have appeared.

Although Ford’s inner beliefs on the power of eminent domain may not have changed, his political position certainly has. I credit blogs for running rings around Ford, and more-or-less forcing him into a flip-flop. Ford is politically astute enough to know that he is a liberal running for public office in a red state. Amidst the vociferous public outcry following the Kelo decision, Ford found himself on the wrong side, and bloggers wouldn’t let him off the hook.

Remember that the Kelo ruling empowers government to take private property and give it to another owner for virtually any reason the government deems necessary. Kelo is an abomination for private property rights in America. Harold Ford, Jr. called it a “positive” ruling, and only backpedaled after Internet bloggers pointed out his praise of the decision.

Notwithstanding, the five justices who rendered Kelo still sit on the Supreme Court, meaning that advocates of absolute property rights in America constitute a minority on the high court. Since the U.S. Senate is vested with confirmation power over the President’s judicial picks, who do you want voting for the next Supreme Court nominee?

A four-day grandstanding event disguised as a confirmation hearing on behalf of Samuel Alito, nominee to the Supreme Court, came to a remarkable end last Thursday. A bunch of lightweight Senate Democrats showed the rest of the nation just how panicked they have become in attempting — and failing — to wrest Mr. Alito from atop his intellectual perch.

There’s not enough room in this column to highlight all the Democrats’ shenanigans, so let’s pick it up with Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who provided the most outrageous moment on day three of the hearing. Senator Kennedy stepped in it when he brought up Alito’s 1985 reference to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) group, a conservative organization.

Kennedy demanded that Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter issue a subpoena to obtain that organization’s documents, implying that Alito was being untruthful about his lack of awareness of some of the more controversial aspects of the group’s magazine, asserting that the nominee’s “affiliation with an organization that fought the admission of women into Princeton calls into question his appreciation for the needs for full equality in this country.”

Senators Specter and Kennedy then sparred over whether Specter had ever received a letter from Kennedy making that request. After Kennedy threatened that Specter would hear his request “again and again and again” and tie up the committee with multiple votes on the issue, Specter announced he was not concerned with the senator’s threats, and continued the hearing.

Good for Senator Specter, because Kennedy’s digging turned up nothing and nothing and nothing. Completely out of ammunition, his Hail Mary didn’t just go “thud,” it got intercepted.

You see, according to the Washington Times, Senator Kennedy still belongs to a club for Harvard students and alumni — the Owl Club — that was thrown off campus in 1984 for refusing to allow female members, thus violating federal anti-discrimination laws that Kennedy authored. Perhaps Senator Kennedy should have left that stone unturned.

Indeed, we learned a great deal more about the senators questioning (or lecturing) Alito than we did about Alito. For example, Ankle Biting Pundits performed a “Senatorial Bloviation Statistical Analysis” on the percentage of words spoken by each senator compared with the number of words spoken by Alito.

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) spoke 78% of the time he had the floor, including a 1,879 word, 13-minute opening “question,” allowing Mr. Alito the remaining 22%.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) used up 75% of his time listening to himself speak, according Mr. Alito only 25% of his time.

Senator Kennedy was a little more generous, using up a mere 69% of his window on himself, kindly allowing Mr. Alito the other 31%.

Of course, I thought the hearing was supposed to be about Samuel Alito — not a bunch of U.S. senators. But when you’re as overmatched as these Senators were, I can understand having Alito say as little as possible.

Nearing the end of day three, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) apologized to the Alito family for the behavior of his fellow committee members, offering “Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.”

Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha, left the confirmation hearing room in tears.

One senior Republican in the hearing room remarked: “After three full days of attacks against her husband’s character, Mrs. Alito had enough. Democrat behavior during this hearing has not only been wrong, it’s been embarrassing. Ted Kennedy is nothing but a bully.”

Indeed, the pit into which the confirmation process has devolved must discourage a lot of qualified people from even considering accepting a nomination to the federal judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court.

Liberal senators are acting out of desperation. They know the moment a constructionist majority sits on the Supreme Court, liberalism will be dismantled plank-by-plank. That’s because institutionalized liberalism, such as abortion, gay marriage, gun control, and eminent domain seizures for private development, are either not in the U.S. Constitution or run counter to it.

Samuel Alito explained his judicial philosophy as follows: “I think the Constitution means something. And I don’t think it means whatever I might want it to mean or whatever any other member of the judiciary might want it to mean. It has its own meaning. And it is the job of a judge, the job of a Supreme Court justice, to interpret the Constitution, not distort the Constitution, not add to the Constitution or subtract from the Constitution.”

Assuming Samuel Alito is ultimately confirmed to the court, the left’s final undoing would be for one of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices to leave the bench within the next two years, and for George W. Bush to then nominate his third constructionist to the high court. That would make the majority of the Supreme Court constructionist.

If you think the left is unhinged now, you’ve seen nothing. This scenario would finally drive liberals over a cliff. They would spontaneously combust, because a constructionist majority on the high court would be D-Day for liberalism in America. Liberals cannot accomplish their objectives at the ballot box or in the arena of ideas. All they have is the judiciary. Thus, taking the high court from them would render their agenda impotent. That’s how close we are.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals outdid itself in a ruling it handed down back on November 2. Parents in Palmdale, California had brought a lawsuit against their school district for a survey that intruded into the sexual lives of students.

It was described on a consent form as a psychological assessment “to establish a community baseline measure of children’s exposure to early trauma.” Surprisingly, the letter actually informed parents that if the assessment team observed any uncomfortable feelings from a child, the assessment team reserved the “right” to seek a therapist that would provide the child with “further psychological help. To be fair, any parent who willingly signed away so much of his parental responsibility deserved to have his own head examined. Still, the school’s actions were fraudulent.

Students were given a 54-question survey. Ten of the questions were of a sexual nature: Touching my private parts too much, 17) Thinking about having sex, 22) Thinking about touching other people’s private parts, 23) Thinking about sex when I don’t want to, 26) Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside, 34) Not trusting people because they might want sex, 40) Getting scared or upset when I think about sex, 44) Having sex feelings in my body, 47) Can’t stop thinking about sex, and 54) Getting upset when people talk about sex.

By the way, these weren’t high-schoolers who were being “assessed.” The surveys were given to first-, third-, and fifth-graders.

In an opinion that was stunning even for the Ninth Circuit, the court ruled against the parents, citing “there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children.” The court further opined that “parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students.”

Such thinking is mind-boggling to those of us with common sense, but the Ninth Circuit’s ruling is actually consistent with liberalism. Just as liberals don’t trust the voters, they also believe parents are too stupid to be able to instill proper values in their children. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe it takes nothing more than two dedicated parents to raise a child. Liberals believe it takes a village, as the Ninth Circuit has illustrated splendidly.

Under the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, a mother and father who are determined to protect their daughter’s virginity, for example, can be legally undermined by the school system. They have no recourse within the school system, because the left-wing Ninth Circuit has adjudicated away their right to be the only voice in instilling their own values of sexuality.

So, if this girl’s father and mother teach her that abstinence works every time it’s tried — because it does — that abstinence is the only fail-safe method for avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases — because it is — and that it’s Biblically prescribed to remain abstinent until marriage, their daughter’s school can still come along and tell her that it’s okay if she has sex as long as she practices “safe sex.” Again, the parents have no recourse other than to move to a part of the United States that’s not under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit, which, thankfully, is a long way from Tennessee.

A recent Heritage Foundation paper, “Adolescent Virginity Pledges, Condom Use, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Young Adults,” noted that nearly 90% of parents want schools to teach youth to abstain from sex until they are married or in an adult relationship that is close to marriage.

Such a prevailing mindset is why the left believes parents are too stupid to manage their parental responsibilities without “help.” Liberal sex educators routinely ridicule abstinence programs and virginity pledges. It gets in the way of their agenda to pervert and sexualize America’s youth. If the left tried at the polls what they just got handed to them by the Ninth Circuit, they’d be sent packing by the voters.

President Bush recently nominated Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. Early reaction from Democrats was predictable: that Alito is an “extremist,” citing Alito’s ruling as a Third Circuit Court judge to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring a woman to inform her husband before having an abortion. Compare this to the opinion that “there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children,” and tell me just who’s out of the mainstream here.

What an interesting case this is turning out to be. It turns out that the Palmdale, California school district decided to send home consent forms for parents to sign so their children could participate in psychological testing. Here is how the form was worded (source):

Parent Consent

Dear Parent or Caregiver:

The Palmdale School District is asking your support in participating in a district-wide study of our first, third and fifth grade children. The study will be part of a collaborative effort with the California School of Professional Psychology–CSPP/ Alliant International University, Children’s Bureau of Southern California and the Palmdale School District.

The goal of this assessment is to establish a community baseline measure of children’s exposure to early trauma (for example, violence). We will identify internal behaviors such as anxiety and depression and external behaviors such as aggression and verbal abuse. As a result, we will be designing a district wide intervention program to help children reduce these barriers to learning, which students can participate in. Please read this consent letter and if you agree, please sign and send it back to your school’s principal no later than December 20, 2001.

The assessment will consist of three, twenty-minute self-report measures, which will be given to your child on one day during the last week of January. This study is 100% confidential and at no time will the information gathered be used to identify your child. Your child will not be photographed or videotaped. You may refuse to have your child participate or withdraw from this study at any time without any penalty or loss of services to which your child is entitled.

I am aware that the research coordinator, Kristi Seymour, one research assistant, the Palmdale School District, Director of Psychology, Michael Geisser, and a professor from CSPP, will be the only people who have access to the study’s information. After the study is completed, all information will be locked in storage and then destroyed after a period of five years.

I understand answering questions may make my child feel uncomfortable. If this occurs, then, Kristi Seymour, the research study coordinator, will assist us in locating a therapist for further psychological help if necessary. If I have further questions, I may contact Kristi Seymour at 1529 E. Palmdale Blvd., Suite 210, Palmdale, CA 93550 at 661.272.9997 x 128. I understand that I will not be able to get my child’s individual results due to anonymity of the children, but I may get a summary report of the study results.

I have read this form and understand what it says. I her[e]by agree to allow my child to participate in this district-wide study.

So, students were given a 54-question survey. Ten of the questions were of a sexual nature:

8. Touching my private parts too much

17. Thinking about having sex

22. Thinking about touching other people’s private parts

23. Thinking about sex when I don’t want to

26. Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside

34. Not trusting people because they might want sex

40. Getting scared or upset when I think about sex

44. Having sex feelings in my body

47. Can’t stop thinking about sex

54. Getting upset when people talk about sex

A friend of mine who is far more knowledgeable than I regarding such matters of these writes this:

First, I have to say that any parent that signs a parental consent form for independent psychological testing of their child, which includes the words, “I understand answering questions may make my child feel uncomfortable,” is basically either a moron or just plain careless. However, several very interesting parts of this letter that send up “red flags” are:

1) They are clearly looking for psychological signs of child abuse of some sort. They cleverly use the term “early trauma (for example, violence),” rather than “early abuse” to soften the sound of it [i.e., they don't want to use wording that will overtly alarm parents].

2) After the test results are in, “they” plan to create intervention programs to help children with such things as “depression” and “anxiety.” They indicate that students “can participate” in these programs, but cleverly omit any suggestion that parental consent will be required for that participation.

3) Surprisingly, the letter actually informs parents that if the assessment team observes any uncomfortable feelings from a child, the assessment team reserves the “right” to seek a therapist that will provide the child with “further psychological help.” WOW! It is shocking that the assessment team would omit any suggestion, at this point, that parental consent will be required in order to seek psychological therapy for a child! That’s BOLD! Again, I can’t imagine signing a consent form that automatically takes that much responsibility for my child’s mental health — especially without clearly spelling out MY parental rights at every turn along the way.

4) The assessment team also cleverly omitted any indication that the psychological evaluation questions would include sexual references — references that would probably have been alarming to many parents.

The parent-plaintiffs only learned of the sexual nature of some of the questions on the survey when their children informed them of the questions after they had completed questionnaires. The parents allege that if they had known the true nature of the survey, they would not have consented to their children’s involvement. In my opinion, this is a clear case of fraud on the part of the assessment team. They knew full well how parents would feel if they revealed the sexual details of the assessment. So, they “just happened” to omit that as well.

From the opinion: “…[P]arents’ liberty interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children resides ‘first’ in the parents, but does not reside there exclusively, nor is it ‘beyond regulation [by the state] in the public interest.’ … For example, the state ‘as parens patriae’ may restrict parents’ interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children ‘by requiring school attendance, regulating or prohibiting the child’s labor and in many other ways.’”

Notice the use of the term, “as parens patriae” — the same term used by the American Psychological Association in their “Guidelines for Psychological Evaluations in Child Protection Matters.”

The opinion goes on to state, “Likewise, lower courts have recognized the constitutionality of a wide variety of state actions that intrude upon the liberty interest of parents in controlling the upbringing and education of their children.” Fascinating, that we have a court here basically looking for all reasons possible where parental rights can be infringed, in order that they can add one more. If that’s not “pro-state” and “anti-parent,” I’ll give it up!

Another fascinating suggestion by this opinion is that the Ninth Circuit fails to differentiate between “sex education” and psychological testing and evaluation; the former intended to provide sexual information to a child, while the latter is intended to seek personal sexual information from a child. Wow! Even an uneducated Neanderthal like me can see the clear distinction here! The Ninth Circuit shows their absolute absurd logic by stating, “Parents have a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the subject of sex; they have no constitutional right, however, to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise, when and as they school determines that it is appropriate to do so.” Again, the assessment team was not “providing information,” it was SEEKING information. Oh, but I forget — the Ninth Circuit believes in NewsMax’s so-called, “therapeutic nanny state.” That’s scary stuff.

The Ninth Circuit also cleverly tries to skirt around the issue of family privacy by continually focusing on their own imaginary case (that fits more comfortably into their agenda) and constantly reiterating phrases like, “providing information,” “dissemination of information,” “telling children” — all of which indicate that the school is passing information along to the child, rather than PROBING into the child’s psychological condition. The Court releases itself from this dilemma by stating that “The parents do not allege that their children were forced to disclose private information. Their argument is only that the survey violated their own right to make important decisions regarding the manner and timing of exposing their children to sexual matters.” Technically, they may be correct here (indicating that the parents’ lawyers probably goofed up by failing to file the proper complaint regarding privacy). However, this does not make the Court seem any less sleazy, since they are clearly suggesting that if the parents had complained that the assessment team was essentially coercing sexual information from their child, their privacy complaint would probably have been on much firmer constitutional ground.

Finally, the Ninth Circuit perceives a constitutional “state interest and educational purpose” for this psychological assessment by simply stating that it concurs with the goals outlined by the assessment team. They state that, “Protecting the mental health of children falls well within the state’s broad interest in education.” The Court just “rubber stamps” the goals of the study (as put forth by the assessment team) and doesn’t even suggest a concern that there may be boundaries to how far the state should be allowed to intrude into the “mental health” of a parent’s child. No boundaries for psychologists in the public school?

The Court ends by reiterating the importance of the “state’s interest as parens patriae.” Of course, to them, “parens patriae” also has no boundaries!

I’m trying to give President Bush and Harriet Miers the benefit of the doubt. Problem is there’s just too much doubt to gain much benefit from.

I’m sure the Democrats have enjoyed watching the attempted mutiny going on over at the starboard side, with conservatives trying to toss Miers overboard, and President Bush clinging just as desperately to his second Supreme Court nominee.

We don’t know a great deal about Miers other than 1) she is a lawyer who has never served as a judge, 2) she is a woman, and 3) she a Christian. That last one is about the only thing I’ve heard about Miers that gives me comfort. Knowing that certain senators (Schumer, Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Boxer, etc.) are going to be uneasy over the fact that Harriet Miers has — gasp! — deeply held personal beliefs does provide some satisfaction.

But, truth be known, conservatives feel as though they’ve come up on the short end of a bait-and-switch. Many conservatives voted for President Bush foremost because of the prospect of his shaping the federal judiciary. But the President’s nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor may be capitulation, leaving conservatives to wonder whether he is too soft to hold up his end of an impending showdown on the Senate floor.

There is no doubt that Harriet Miers is an honorable person. She’s obviously bright and in no way deserves the slander that President Bush has set her up to receive. True, there are some prominent conservatives, Dr. James C. Dobson for one, who are applauding the President’s choice. But the bottom line is that there were so many more worthwhile candidates from which to choose.

President Bush has assured his base that Harriet Miers will adhere to the letter of the Constitution and will not waver. But “trust me on this one” simply won’t cut it with Supreme Court picks anymore.

I have to hand it to past Democratic presidents. They know how to pick Supreme Court justices. Seriously. Who was the last Supreme Court justice nominated by a Democrat who veered off to the right? There haven’t been any in my lifetime. Now, who was the last Supreme Court justice nominated by a Republican who veered off to the left? David Souter (Bush), Anthony Kennedy (Reagan), and Sandra Day O’Connor (Reagan) just among those who are currently sitting. So forgive me if “trust me on this one” isn’t enough this time.

Despite all their claims to nuance and intellectual superiority, when it comes down to Supreme Court nominees, liberals are very basic. There care about exactly one thing: would that nominee, if confirmed, ever rule against Roe v. Wade. The left doesn’t really care about qualifications or any other issue.

Conservatives care about Roe v. Wade, for sure, but the paramount question of a potential Supreme Court justice is his or her strict adherence to the Constitution as it is written (called “constructionism”). Conservatives don’t necessarily want like-minded ideologues on the bench as much as we want justices who will simply interpret our founding document as it is written without inserting his or her own personal beliefs in place of the law.

So, with respect to Harriet Miers, perhaps she will turn out to be a constructionist. Perhaps President Bush’s dark horse will play out as a stroke of genius. We will only know for sure once she is confirmed and starts writing opinions. But had the President appointed someone with an established judicial record of constructionism, such as Janice Rogers Brown, we wouldn’t have to be told “trust me on this one” yet again.

The following is a transcript of Focus on the Family Chairman Dr. James Dobson’s comments from today’s broadcast, in which he discusses what the White House told him about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

OPENING VOICE TRACK:

John Fuller: It’s Wednesday. I’m John Fuller and you’re tuned to “FOF” with psychologist and author, Dr. James Dobson. And Doctor, what a crazy week you’ve had!

BODY:

JCD: Well, John, if our listeners and friends have been monitoring the news on radio and television and the Internet and if they have been listening to other talk shows in the past week, then they know well, that I have been a topic of conversation from the nation’s Capitol to the tiniest burg and farming community. And the issue that’s propelled this unprecedented interest in something that I’ve said is my 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.

Now, as you know and as I’m sure many of our listeners know, there are 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 (Laughter), because in the next few minutes, I’m gonna tell them what I would say to them if I were sitting before the judiciary committee. And this is the essence of what transpired between the Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House and me. So, is that clear?

John: I think that is. And for our listeners, you wouldn’t believe all that’s going on here at Focus, as so many of the mainstream media — most of the mainstream media — is contacting us. They, like those Senators, want to know, “What does Dr. Dobson know? What did he talk about? Tell us, please.”

JCD: Well, John, I think it’s time that I did that.

John: Okay, before you do though, it probably would be helpful for our listeners to understand why you can talk about that now and previously you couldn’t.

JCD: Yeah, I haven’t been willing to. The reason is because Karl Rove has now given me permission to go public with our conversation. And I’m gonna say a little more about that in a minute.

John: OK. Well, fill us in then on what happened.

JCD: Well, let me go back through the sequence of events and…and explain what happened. The President announced his decision on Monday morning, October 3rd, that Harriet Miers was his selection and the debate was on. And a few hours after that, 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. 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.

Well, my reasons for supporting her were twofold, John. First, because Karl Rove had shared with me her judicial philosophy which was consistent with the promises that President Bush had made when he was campaigning. Now he 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.

Then he suggested that I might want to validate that opinion by talking to people in Texas who knew Miers personally and he gave me the names of some individuals that I could call. And I quickly followed up on that conversation and got glowing reports from a federal judge in Texas, Ed Kinkeade and a Texas Supreme Court justice, Nathan Hecht, who is highly respected and has known Harriet Miers for more than 25 years. And so, we talked to him and we talked to some others who are acquainted with Ms. Miers.

So, I shared my findings with my colleagues, not only what I just mentioned, but other calls I made. I talked to Chuck Colson, my great friend, who is a constitutional attorney –

John: Uh-hm, uh-hm.

JCD: — and talked to him four times. He helped me kind of assimilate the information that we had garnered, but I would not say much about the phone call from Karl Rove, even though I’m very close to many of the people who are on the telephone. Why would I not do that? Because it was a confidential conversation and I’ve had a long-standing policy of not going out and revealing things that are said to me in confidence. That may come from my training as a psychologist, where you hear all sorts of things that you can’t go out and talk about.

John: Sure.

JCD: And I feel very strongly about that. And frankly, I think it’s a mistake and maybe even an ethical problem for people to do that — to go out and brag about being a player on the national scene, maybe to make themselves to look important. You know, I just wish that didn’t happen like it does and I certainly didn’t want to be part of it.

So, I wouldn’t reveal any of the details about the call, although I did say to these pro-family leaders, which has been widely quoted, that Karl had told me something that I probably shouldn’t know. And you know, it really wasn’t all that tantalizing, but I still couldn’t talk about it. And what I was referring to is the fact that on Saturday, the day before the President made his decision, I knew that Harrier Miers was at the top of the short list of names under consideration. And as you know, that information hadn’t been released yet, and everyone in Washington and many people around the country wanted to know about it and the fact that he had shared with me is not something I wanted to reveal.

But we also talked about something else, and I think this is the first time this has been disclosed. Some of the other candidates who had been on that short list, and that many conservatives are now upset about were highly qualified individuals that had been passed over. Well, 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.

So, even today, many conservatives and many of ‘em friends of mine, are being interviewed on talk shows and national television programs. And they’re saying, “Why didn’t the President appoint so-and-so? He or she would have been great. They had a wonderful judicial record. They would have been the kind of person we’ve been hoping and working and praying for to be on the Court.” Well, it very well may be that those individuals didn’t want to be appointed.

John: For understandable reasons, because the grilling that they get in that confirmation process is just brutal.

JCD: Well, it’s true. The Democrats have so politicized that process that it’s become an ordeal and many people just don’t want to go through that. And I’m not sure I blame them. So, Karl Rove shared some of that with me. He also made it clear that the President was looking for a certain kind of candidate, namely a woman to replace Justice O’Connor. And you can imagine what that did to the short list. That cut it…I haven’t looked at who I think might have been on that short list, because Karl didn’t tell me who was not willing to be considered.

But that many have cut it by 80 percent right there. But I was not gonna be the one to reveal this. I knew that people would eventually be aware of some of that information, but I didn’t think I had the right to say it. And so, I made my comment.

Now there’s…there’s something else I’ll say in a moment that I was referring to. But let me just say that some of my friends that I was talking to that day and thought I was speaking in confidence, went straight to the media and…and shared what I had said or what I had not said. And that’s where the firestorm began. You know, “What did Dobson know and when did he know it?”

Now let me go back to the statement that there were some things from my conversation with Karl Rove that I couldn’t talk about. And of course, the media has keyed on that statement. I had no idea that was going to be released to the media, but there it is.

So, what was it that I couldn’t talk about? The answer has everything to do with timing. It’s very important to remember that when I first made that statement about knowing things that I shouldn’t know, and shared that with my colleagues the day that the President made his announcement, maybe two or three hours after his press conference.

And then, that very night, I went on the Brit Hume program — the FOX News program — and…and talked about the President’s nomination. And then, the following day — Tuesday — I recorded a statement for FOF, which was heard on Wednesday. And that is the last time that I said that I had information that was confidential and that I really couldn’t talk about.

Why? Because what I was told by Karl Rove had been confirmed and reported from other sources by that time.

What did Karl Rove say to me that I knew on Monday that I couldn’t reveal? Well, it’s what we all know now, 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 Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life. In other words, there is a characterization of her that was given to me before the President had actually made this decision. I could not talk about that on Monday. I couldn’t talk about it on Tuesday. In fact, Brit Hume said, “What church does she go to?” And I said, “I don’t think it’s up to me to reveal that.” Do you remember my saying that?

John: I do, yes.

JCD: What I meant was, I couldn’t get into this. But by Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, all this information began to come out and it was no longer sensitive. I didn’t have the right to be the one that revealed it and that’s what I was referring to.

John: Well, I’d also guess, Doctor, that the answer you gave here about the contents of that conversation and why you couldn’t divulge some of those matters, won’t satisfy the senators on the judiciary committee, who were looking for some red meat.

JCD: Well, John, I have no doubt that what I’ve just said will be a great disappointment to Senator Schumer and Senator Salazar and Senator Biden and Senator Durban and Senator Leahy and Senator Lautenberg and some of the other liberal Democrats, because Karl Rove didn’t tell me anything about the way Harriet Miers would vote on cases that may come before the Supreme Court.

We did not discuss Roe v. Wade in any context or any other pending issue that will be considered by the Court. I did not ask that question. 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.

One thing is clear. We know emphatically that Justices Souter and Kennedy and Breyer and Ginsburg and Stevens have made up their mind about Roe v. Wade, by politicizing their decrees on that issue and others. They have usurped the right of the people to govern themselves and they imposed a radical agenda on this country. And John, as long as I’m talking about that, let me say one other
thing.

More recently, they have been drawing some of their conclusions, not from the Constitution and not from precedent and not from the American people, but from public opinion in Western Europe. You know, that’s one of the most outrageous developments in the history of the Court. American public opinion is ignored and so are previous Court decisions or precedent. And frequently, the Constitution itself is bypassed. And instead they favor the views of people who have no commitment to our freedoms and our traditions that the Founding Fathers gave us.

So, I want the President to appoint someone who will go to the original intent of the Constitution and tell us what the founding fathers meant. If we don’t like what they wrote, there’s a process to change it. But the way it works now, every time the Court meets, it can be more or less a constitutional convention, where five or more justices reinterpret the meaning of that precious document.

Now Karl Rove didn’t tell me all of that, but what he said, in essence, is that Harriet Miers is a strict constructionist, which is why the President likes her. And you know, I’ve never met her; I don’t have any personal communication with her. I’ve never received a letter or a phone call from her or any firsthand knowledge, but I do believe President Bush is serious when he says this is the kind of person I’m looking for and Harriet Miers is such a person.

Nevertheless, what the Democrats have concluded in their wildest speculation is that Mr. Rove laid out for me a detailed promise that Ms. Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and revealed all the other judicial opinions that she has supposedly prejudged. It did not happen, period!

Senator Leahy was speaking on George Stephanopoulos’s program, “This Week” on Sunday, just past. And this is what he said and I quote. This is word for word: “James Dobson has said that he knew privately; he had private assurances of how she would vote.” Well, Leahy is either lying or he’s given to his own delusions or he’s got some problem somewhere, because that’s flat out not true. Nowhere have I been quoted making such a statement, because it’s not true.

Again John, last Sunday, Democrats were on all the talk shows and nearly all of them mentioned me one way or another. Senator Schumer from New York, referred to my conversations with Karl Rove as a “wink and a whisper,” you know, trying to make something sinister out of it. It’s obvious what the agenda is here.

Now John, I feel like I have clarified the nature of my conversation with Karl Rove. Let me just say in the conclusion to my comments here — and I want to speak directly to members of the judiciary committee about the possibility of my coming to testify — if they want to do that, then I just suggest that they quit talking about and just go do it. I have nothing to hide and I’ll be happy to come and talk to you. But I won’t have anything to say that I haven’t just told millions of people. And so, that’s really the end of my statement.

(end of transcript)

Despite all the speculation that President Bush would choose a female to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor, the President has chosen John G. Roberts, Jr., who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Roberts was confirmed unanimously for that seat in June, 2003 as a relatively uncontentious choice.

On the one hand, this is a brilliant maneuver — selecting a gentleman who was confirmed unanimously just two years ago. However, during his hearing, Roberts also remarked “Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. … There’s nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent.”

But Roberts also wrote a brief for President George H.W. Bush’s administration in a 1991 abortion case, in which he noted “we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled.”

Well, either it was wrongly decided or is worthy of being fully and faithfully applied, but not both.

Just like a State of the Union Address rebuttal, Senators Leahy and Schumer immediately followed Roberts’ brief acceptance speech, and Senator Schumer almost immediately began complaining about Roberts’ limited record as a judge, and further complained that Roberts’ occupation as a lawyer left many of his personal views unknown. Schumer said that he voted against Roberts two years ago — contrary to an above-linked news story that claims Roberts was confirmed unanimously — because Roberts did not answer several of Schumer’s questions.

Senator Schumer, it’s not your duty to weigh Judge Roberts’ personal beliefs. It’s your job to weigh his professional qualifications. Heck, two years ago, more than 140 members of the D.C. Bar, including officials from the Clinton Administration, signed a letter urging Roberts’ appeals court confirmation. The letter stated: “He is one of the very best and most highly respected appellate lawyers in the nation, with a deserved reputation as a brilliant writer and oral advocate. He is also a wonderful professional colleague both because of his enormous skills and because of his unquestioned integrity and fair-mindedness.”

That wasn’t worth two cents to Senator Schumer back then, obviously.

Senator Durbin has also weighed in calling Roberts a “controversial nominee,” which would lead to a tough nomination process. (Note that when liberals use the “controversial” qualifier when talking about a judge, it’s always used in place of the word “conservative.”)

What else did you expect? Back on July 6, Senator Schumer promised that Democrats would go to war, regardless of the candidate. I didn’t doubt him.

Michelle Malkin has a lot more.