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Dobson Says He Didn't Discuss Roe v Wade With Karl Rove
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
October 12, 2005
(CNSNews.com) -- Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson says he did not discuss Roe v. Wade -- or any other pending issue that will come before the U.S. Supreme Court -- with White House adviser Karl Rove.
"I did not ask that question," Dobson will say Wednesday on his radio program. "You know, to be honest, I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade. But even if Karl had known the answer to that, and I'm certain that he didn't, because the president himself said he didn't know, Karl would not have told me that."
Focus on the Family released a transcript of Wednesday's radio program before it aired, anticipating great interest in Dobson's comments.
Some U.S. senators, including the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have said they want to know what the White House told Dobson. If fact, Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has said he might call Dobson to testify during Miers' confirmation hearings next month.


On his radio program last week, Dr. Dobson told his listeners, "When you know some of the things that I know -- that I probably shouldn't know -- you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that Harriet Miers will be a good justice."
Dobson said he spoke with Rove on Oct. 1, a Saturday, the day before President Bush made his decision to nominate his White House counsel attorney to the Supreme Court.
"Now, as you know and as I'm sure many of our listeners know, there are members of the judiciary committee who are running from one talk show to another, threatening to subpoena me to find out what occurred in that conversation with Karl Rove. And I am going to make their job easier (laughter), because in the next few minutes, I'm gonna tell them what I would say to them if I were sitting before the judiciary committee."
On Wednesday's taped radio show, Dobson says Karl Rove "has now given me permission to go public with our conversation."
And here's what Dobson wants everyone to know:
He insists he did not receive assurances that Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. "It did not happen, period," Dobson said, regardless of what Democrats think.
Dobson says Karl Rove shared Miers "judicial philosophy" with him -- and it was "consistent with the promises that President Bush had made when he was campaigning."
Dobson said his comment about knowing something that he probably shouldn't know "really wasn't all that tantalizing."
He said he was referring to the fact that Rove had told him on Saturday that Miers was at the top of the short list of names under consideration.
"And as you know, that information hadn't been released yet, and everyone in Washington and many people around the country wanted to know about it and the fact that he had shared with me is not something I wanted to reveal."
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