***They weren't HIS number:
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.
I see a paragraph break just before the "80 percent", but no "John" leading that paragraph to indicate a change of speaker, and the rest of the paragraph following the "80 percent" continues to discuss, in the first person, what the speaker would or would not reveal - namely I claim that Bush cut the list to just the women.