Two days before President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke to Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and told him Miers was at the top of the short list. On the October 12 edition of his radio show, Dobson discussed his conversation with Rove, revealing that Rove told him some candidates had removed themselves from consideration.
"They would not allow their names to be considered because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they did not want to subject themselves or the members or their families to it," said Dobson. "So even today, many conservatives, and many of them friends of mine, are being interviewed on talk shows and national television programs, and they are saying, 'Why didn't the President appoint so-and-so? He or she would have been great. They have a wonderful judicial record. They would have been the kind of person we have 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."
