Who is Harriet Miers? Part 6

From Ankle Biting Pundits (Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the heads up.) comes the latest misadventure from Dr. Masturbation:

ABP Exclusive: Democrats May Force Dobson to Testify
Posted by H-Bomb on Friday, 07 October 2005 (07:14:57) EDT
Contributed by H-Bomb

Will Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena James Dobson during the Harriet Miers confirmation hearings? The subject has been discussed in the halls of Democrat power, according to a source who works on Capitol Hill.

As issue are Dr. Dobson’s recent cryptic remarks that his endorsement of Ms. Miers was founded on “confidential” information he was “privy to” but which he was “not at liberty to talk about.”

Extreme leftists in the blogosphere lopped onto the comments right away. Shortly thereafter, extreme liberal groups piled on. And now, one liberal Senator, Ken Salazar from Dobson’s Colorado, has taken up the cause:

Quote:

"It seems to me, all of the (information) the White House knows about Harriet Miers should be made available to the Senate and the American people. If they're making information available to Dr. Dobson - whom I respect and disagree with from time to time - I believe that information should be shared equally with a U.S. senator."

Insiders tell me that Sen. Salazar believes Dobson should be called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer frankly what he knows about Ms. Miers, when he knew it, and who provided him with the information. The unspoken suspicion is that someone in the Bush administration (Karl Rove, presumably) told Dobson that Miers is pro-life and has pledged to vote against Roe v. Wade should she be confirmed.

Salazar does not sit on the Judiciary Committee, so his input with respect to the “witness list” the minority is permitted to draw up is virtually meaningless. Nevertheless, Salazar’s top staffers have spent the last two days pitching the idea to top Democrat committee staff.

Pushback against this idea, surprisingly, comes from Salazar’s Democrat colleagues, specifically Minority Leader Harry Reid. Reid, who has expressed support for Ms. Miers, believes calling Dr. James Dobson before the committee as some sort of hostile witness would be a disastrous P.R. stunt that would further alienate the Democrat Party from Christian conservatives.

“We’re not going to conduct an Inquisition,” one top Hill staffer told me. “Salazar’s idea is half-baked.”

Nevertheless, another Hill staffer tells me that Sen. Ted Kennedy, who does sit on the Judiciary Committee, is rather taken by the idea and is working on a way to craft it as a “separation of powers” issue rather than a religious issue. If Democrats can make this about President Bush withholding information, the thinking goes, it might just work.

Stay tuned. The Miers hearings could be the biggest thing in Washington since the Thomas hearings.