Posted on 10/05/2005 7:12:52 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
(AgapePress) - During a heartfelt and compassionate broadcast this morning (Wednesday), Dr. James Dobson explained why he believes Harriett Miers -- President Bush's pick to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court -- deserves the support of Christians and other family advocates.
The Focus on the Family founder took all of his daily broadcast today to share why he believes the relatively unknown attorney from Texas who has served as White House counsel under the current Bush administration will be a good addition to the high court. He said he knows and has spoken to people who have known Miers for years, and that he has confidence in those people's opinions.
Those individuals, says Dobson, have confirmed reports that the 60-year-old nominee is an active and dedicated Christian who serves in her nondenominational, evangelical Dallas church -- Valley View Christian Church. "She is a deeply committed Christian," said Dobson, "and a tithe-paying member" of her church, according to those conversations. LifeNews.com reported this week that Miers has taught Sunday school and served on the church's mission board for years. And the pastor of her church, according to that report, is a staunch pro-lifer.
According to a New York Times article yesterday, Miers made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ in 1979 and was baptized soon thereafter at Valley View Christian Church. Her longtime friend, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan L. Hecht -- who prayed with Miers when she accepted the Lord -- told the Times he knows where she stands on abortion. "Yes, she goes to a pro-life church," he said, adding, "I know Harriet is, too."
Dobson also took time during his broadcast to address recent allegations that Miss Miers, in the late 1980s, had voiced support for homosexual rights and financially supported the presidential campaign of Democrat Al Gore. Dobson noted that in a 1989 survey Miers said she supported equal, not special, rights for homosexuals -- a stand consistent with his own beliefs, said Dobson; and in the same survey also state she did not support repeal of the Texas sodomy law, a statute that was later overturned by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas.
And regarding the Gore campaign contribution, Dobson pointed out that in 1988 Al Gore was pro-life -- a stand the vice president-to-be would ultimately change, perhaps for political expediency, Dobson suggested.
But aside from Miers' apparent stand on hot-button social issues, Dr. Dobson spent ample time explaining why he believes President Bush ought to be trusted on his selection of the former head of the Texas State Bar. Thus far, he said, the president has been true to his campaign promise to place conservative, strict constructionist judges on the federal bench. So the ministry founder wonders why -- with his political legacy hinging so heavily on his judicial appointments -- would the president "sabotage" that legacy with an appointment inconsistent with his own tenets.
"It would contradict his basic philosophical beliefs," said Dobson. And lest he be accused of being a "shill" for the president, Dobson noted that he does not agree with every policy coming out of the White House, such as how to deal with illegal immigration. But as far as the Miers nomination is concerned, he said, "I believe in trusting this president at this time."
Dobson concluded by saying that if he is wrong on the nomination of Harriett Miers, he will come before the microphone and "repent."
Reports Distorted, Says AIM Meanwhile, the watchdog group Accuracy in Media says some members of the conservative media are distorting portions of Harriett Mier's record. AIM says reports that the Supreme Court nominee is on record supporting the establishment of the International Criminal Court and homosexual adoptions are erroneous.
"There's no evidence for the charge," says AIM's Cliff Kincaid, adding that the "documents" allegedly supporting the reports have been "seriously distorted by WorldNetDaily and other outlets."
AIM also says a Chicago Sun-Times columnist is guilty of perpetuating the inaccurate reports. The columnist, Robert Novak, wrote that Miers chaired a panel the "recommended legalization of gay adoption and establishment of an International Criminal Court." But Kincaid says Miers was chair of a panel that simply passed along recommendations from various entities in the American Bar Association for consideration by members of the ABA.
AIM says "there's no evidence that [Miers] put her personal stamp of approval on those controversial positions."
The people Dobson is speaking to are christians and this is important to us.
Most of them never voted for him in the first place. Some are libertarians, some are Brigadeers (now known as Tancredo supporters). Most have hated Bush as much as the DUers do.
I never said that there wasn't any political calculus involved. If fact there has to be a political calculus. The nomination has to go through the anti-constructionist senate.
Do you approve of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court?
Need more info
38.0%
Yes
32.3%
No
25.3%
I'm voting Hillary!
2.2%
Pass
2.2%
LOUSY DUMMIE TROLLS!!! (/sarc)
The problem is that original intent is so often fuzzy. What did the founders intend about imprecise words in a changing nation, with new issues and problems, a nation that they well knew would change, although not nearly as drastically as it has?
There is no legislative history attending the Constitution's writing, and the Bill of Rights. Much of that is a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." The second amendment is a case in point, along with the 9th and 10th amendments, and the equal protection clause.
Other tools are needed, a lot of them, process issues in voting (a level playing field in the public square), the effects on the economy, expectations, avoiding Constitutional crises, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, changing notions as to what certain words mean in a changing world, such as cruel and unusual. Simple nostrums don't often work in complex cases, or cases with great import on the public square. They just don't.
There is a huge difference between a "Conservative" Justice and a "Constructionist". The Conservative Justices that so many people here seem to want are Justices who want an all-powerful Judiciary, just like the Liberals want. Only they want to ban abortion.
Constructionist Justices want the Fed'l Gov't to be limited to the powers that our Constitution gave it (or at least as close as we can get from the hugely expanded role we have let them take).
GWB promised us Constructionist Justices. So carping about the fact that his picks don't have an abortion ban as their first priority is useless. He never said he'd appoint anyone like that - in fact, he went out of his way to say he wouldn't.
His picks will be Constructionist, not big gov't Conservative.
Fair enough. However others are listening.
The founding fathers took care of that, they gaveus the Ammendment process.
Cruel and unusal is really easy for me, just check the statues of what was allowed by the 13 states and check for any over rulings in the fist 50-100 years. OK, maybe that's a nod to stare decisis, but I'm lazy and stare decisis is for us lazy jurists.
To think how much of the govenment I could invalidate with the 10th ammendment. The entire regulatory apparatus....bwahahahaha
Maybe I should go to law school, hitch myself to a rising star so I can get a judgeship and then write plain vanilla opinions for 20 years until I get on SCOTUS and then let it rip. (/more evil laughter)
Is cruel and usnusal what is deemed such in each generation, or fixed on stone by the morays of a snapshot in time? What did the founders intend? Nobody knows, frankly, and those who suggest otherwise, are dissembling.
Exactly right.
The 30 year mole. How old are you?
No one is going to go that far. Just overturn Roe and send it back to the states. Sure someone could make the arguement that fetuses are protected under the 14th ammendment and entitled to equal protection under law but I don't see it happening. I see that argument going down 9-0
I'll be 30 later this month.
I always err on fixed, unless someone can demonstrate otherwise. If they can, then I'll reverse myself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/05/AR2005100502200_pf.html
Weyrich, who hosted one of the two private meetings, said afterward that he had rarely seen the level of passion at one of his weekly sessions. "This kind of emotional thing will not happen" often, Weyrich said. But he feared the White House advisers did not really grasp the seriousness of the conservative grievance. "I don't know if they got the message. I didn't sense that they really understand where people were coming from."
At Weyrich's two-hour luncheon featuring Mehlman and Goeglein addressing 85 activists, the host opened the discussion by rejecting Bush's call to trust him. "I told Mehlman that I had had five 'trust-mes' in my long history here . . . and I said, 'I'm sorry but the president saying he knows her heart is insufficient," Weyrich said, referring to Republican court appointments that resulted in disappointment for conservatives.
July 8, 1981, Wednesday, AM cycle
SECTION: Washington News
BYLINE: By WESLEY G. PIPPERT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
In Texas, television evangelist James Robison expressed his support for Mrs. [Sandra Day] O'Connor based on a conversation Tuesday with presidential counselor Edwin Meese.
A Robison aide said Meese told the evangelist:
''Sandra O'Connor thinks abortion is abhorrent and is not in favor of it. She agrees with the president on abortion. There was a time when she was sympathetic toward the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) movement, but the more she studied and found out about it, the more she changed her mind.
''She is very conservative ... Sandra O'Connor assured the president that she was in agreement with him and she totally supports pro-family issues and the Republican platform.''
She may have. She may have "grown" in office.
One of the most important qualities in a nominee is will they not grow in office. It's a fairly nebulous thing to interpret.
If we want "outcomes based" jusrices we should find 9 O'Conners.
My two favorite comments from the Roberts hearings were that 1) he'd be offended to be called an outcome based judge and 2) he did not believe in using international law.
"television evangelist James Robison"
First, I hope you realize that's not James Dobson. I've seen others on FR who confused the two.
Second, there's a big "quality of mind" difference between Dobson and Robison.
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