Dobson's Fatal Mistake

You heard it here first!

Dr. James Dobson has spent far too much time in the conservative movement to be considered one of the good ol'' boys. It could be said that, when the DC establishment does the right thing, Dobson speaks for it. When the DC establishment goes awry, Dobson speaks to it. But, as with the Pope, Dobson's dedication, honesty, and humility do not make him infallible in all matters.

As I speculated earlier, Dr. Dobson has based his views on hearsay and Miers' personal views. (Hat tip: Erick at Confirmthem.com)

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...
What did Karl Rove say to me that I knew on Monday that I couldn't’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...

In fact, Dobson even said that he was not told anything that has not since been made public. Miers's supporters had hoped that when Dobson would speak out, he would tell us something that we did not already know. They hinged their hopes on Dr. Dobson, trusting his judgment. Now we see that in this case, his judgment is simply wrong. Their desperate, but understandable, attempts to believe that there must be something more that Dobson knows have now been obliterated.

The White House has nothing left. Their greatest ally, their great hope for convincing conservatives, has spoken, and the only thing that it changed is that the rest of the table now knows just how weak the White House's hand is. Conservative Senators now know that they will have nothing to hang their hats on, nothing to defend a Yea vote. It is time for Ms. Miers to do the right thing and withdraw herself.