Fox News Sunday with Host Chris Wallace included an interview on the Harriet Miers nomination with Senator Lindsey Graham, Texas supreme court justice Nathan Hecht and Reagan Domestic Policy Advisor Gary Bauer. Hecht is noted pro-life hero for strongly supporting parental notification and is a friend of Supreme Court justice nominee Harriet Miers, having served as an elder in her church (more here).
Graham and Hecht are ardant supporters of the nomination while Bauer has publicy opposed it. While the interview includes other topics, the subject of abortion was prominently discussed:
WALLACE: She attends an evangelical Christian church. Justice Hecht says that she's pro-life. Why isn't that enough for you?BAUER: Well, first of all, I'm glad as an evangelical myself that she's an evangelical. But being an evangelical, as Judge Hecht has repeatedly said this week, tells us absolutely nothing about her judicial philosophy.
You can be an evangelical and you can be self-prescribed pro- life. But it doesn't tell us what she will do about a decision like Roe that has been set in stone now for over 30 years. And, Chris, that's the rub.
WALLACE: Justice Hecht, you say that Ms. Miers is pro-life. How do you know that?
HECHT: Just over the years, talking, the fact that she goes to a church that takes an open pro-life stance. You know, it's not something that you sit around talking about all the time.
But again, once you -- I can understand that Gary doesn't know her, but there are people who do. And the people who do have come forward this week and said look, this is a very qualified person, a solid person, and you can tell what she thinks.Remarkably, Hecht suggests that it is possible to believe that abortion is murder and still uphold Roe v. Wade. "Because it's easy," he said.WALLACE: Let me just follow up on this question of pro-life. Does she regard abortion as murder?
HECHT: Well, I don't know that we've ever talked in exactly those terms. But she is pro-life. I mean, you press around it all you can, but she is pro-life, and she has been for 25 years.
WALLACE: If she does believe that, Justice, how could she possibly vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, if she believes that abortion is murder?
HECHT: Because it's easy. Legal issues and personal issues are just two different things. Judges do it all the time. In fact, a judge is going to take an oath that says I'm going to judge rightly in cases, which means that you have to set aside your personal views in deciding the case. And if you don't do that, you're either a bad believer in your views, a bad judge or both.
BAUER: Look, I'm confused here. I can't tell whether Judge Hecht is arguing that she is going to overturn Roe or she's not going to overturn Roe. If he wants to reassure his fellow pro-life conservatives, that's the last argument he should be making, the argument that he just made.
He said he hasn't talked to her about Roe. The fact of the matter is for over 20 years of her being involved in the law, she has not written one word, said one word, given a speech, written a letter to the editor on any of the key constitutional issues that conservatives care about and are worried about and want to make sure the court does not go down the road on.
[snip]
GRAHAM: The bottom line is the president knows her the best. The president has sought her counsel for a decade and has been pleased with the advice. He's a conservative president pushing conservative policies and his lawyer, he believes, is a conservative.
This point and the ambiguity of Hecht's remarks aside, the problem is that Miers' nomination is simply not what conservatives and pro-lifers expected. She is relatively unknown to a large segment of Bush's conservative base and at this late hour and with the current political climate, it is unlikely that those concerned will get any more information than is already available.
More to follow ...
HT: Okie on the LAM
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