He and He Said/She Said

Perhaps apropos for a woman of Harriet Miers' generation, the highly operative question of the week for her nomination prospects appears to be "Does she or doesn't she?"  This morning in the Wall Street Journal, the usually hacktastic John Fund dropped a strangely planted-feeling bomb on the start of the workweek: two of her best friends from Texas said in a Konservative Konference Kall that given the chance to overturn Roe, she would "absolutely" do it:

Mr. Dobson says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, "Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think."

What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, "Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

"Absolutely," said Judge Kinkeade.

"I agree with that," said Justice Hecht. "I concur."

If you found yourself skipping through the excerpt without clicking the link, I hate to enable such perfidy by giving you the needed context---ah dammit, OK: Jittery Jim Dobson is doing his level best to help prop up the nominee, and helped organize a conference of faith in order to soothe rattled evangelicals.  According to Dobson, 'someone' virtually handed him Kinkeade and Hecht and let the call roll.

By mid-afternoon, word had already made it to Capitol Hill:

Her position on the contentious topic appeared to gain some clarity when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., emerged from a nearly two-hour meeting with her, saying she'd affirmed a key underpinning of the Roe vs. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.

    

But a short time later, his spokesman issued a statement saying that the senator had misunderstood Ms. Miers and that the nominee had not taken a position on a constitutional right to privacy.

                             

       Hours earlier, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the nominee had        disputed a Wall Street Journal column that quoted two close judicial friends from Texas as telling leading conservative skeptics that she'd vote to reverse the landmark 1973 ruling.

    

"She said to me that she couldn't recall discussing the Roe vs. Wade case – and whether she would overturn it – with anybody," Mr. Schumer said.

To mix metaphors, this really is turning into kabuki of the absurd. Everyone's either asking about Roe, or pretending not to have asked but are handing out the answer with a wink and a nudge. And for one further interesting detail about who knows and who doesn't, we turn to the Knight-Ridder version of the story:

The [evangelical conference] call came one day after Rove spoke at length with Dobson about Miers, assuring the influential conservative that Miers was acceptable. Dobson has said that Rove made no promise about how Miers would vote if confirmed for the court.

The White House said Monday that it didn't set up the second call.

"That was not a call organized by the White House, and as far as I've been able to learn, no one at the White House was involved on that call," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Miers told Schumer that she'd never discussed Roe v. Wade with Kinkeade or Hecht, Schumer said, but she refused to say whether she had ever discussed the issue with Rove.

Kinkeade declined to comment. In a statement read by his assistant, the judge said he "does not feel it is appropriate to have further discussion about Ms. Miers' nomination in public."

Hecht didn't respond to calls for comment.

A little "I've said too much already" from Kinkeade; Hecht appears to have realized that one inopportune quote was enough. And how interesting that KR reports Miers to have specifically denied the comments from the two, rather than just saying "I didn't tell anybody"--although not near as interesting as her refusal to say whether she discussed it with Rove. Which means that pending doom or not, Karl is still running the show and doing whatever he can to keep the turds blossoming in the White House. The stress is showing.

--TJ

 

Comments

[carla]

I'm wondering how Bush has any support whatsoever.