Dobson: "Nominees withdrew..."

According to a Drudge Report® news flash today, Christian leader and President of Focus on the Family James Dobson said on his national radio show that Karl Rove told him that,

"some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it."

This sheds a whole new light on the Miers nomination and the situation President Bush is in. It isn't at all surprising that some of the most prominent conservative women being considered would withdraw from consideration due to the craziness of the confirmation process.

Considering that in 1986, Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed unanimously by a Democratically-controlled US Senate and two decades prior, Justice Byron White was confirmed in under a week, it's easy to see that the process has gone astray from what it used to be. Today, nominees have their entire public and private lives examined under a microscope and sit in a room staring at twelve senators ready to pounce on any mistake they might make.

Some serious examination and subsequent reform in the confirmation process is absolutely necessary and vital if the American public is to expect quality nominees to make their way into the halls of the Judiciary Committee ever again. If not, we can expect more Miers's and fewer Scalia's and that is simply unacceptable.