Salazar hits back at Focus on Family ad

David Montero, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar attacked Focus on the Family at a luncheon in Denver on Tuesday after the nonprofit group took out newspaper ads labeling him a flip-flopper in regard to the nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Salazar, in turn, suggested the group go back to the Bible and look at the Eighth Commandment.

"Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," he told a crowd of about 200 at the Brown Palace Hotel. In some religions that's the Ninth Commandment, but the Catholic Church, of which Salazar is a member, counts it as the eighth.

The ongoing feud between Salazar and the political arm of James Dobson's Colorado Springs ministry has been simmering for much of the senator's first year in office. It reached a crescendo earlier this year when Focus on the Family accused Salazar of failing to follow through on a campaign promise to support an up-or-down vote on judicial nominees.

It's a point made in the new Focus on the Family ad, where Salazar is reported as saying in November 2004 he favored an up-or-down vote and then, in April 2005, the ad reported, his position had changed. It also said he was opposed to hiring quotas at one point, then said he didn't oppose hiring quotas.

Salazar called the advertisement "a falsehood."

But the ad hardly counts as lying, according to Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family Action senior vice president of government and public policy.

"Our ad speaks for itself. All it contains is Sen. Salazar's own words and published accounts of positions he has taken," Minnery's statement read. "It is hard to see how the senator could accuse us of 'bearing false witness' when all we do is inform readers of his views."

After his hourlong speech to the City Club of Denver, Salazar said he is still wrestling with the Alito nomination. The U.S. Senate confirmation hearings will begin in January.

"I don't want an idealogue on the court that isn't going to check their ideology at the door," Salazar said.

For much of his speech, the freshman senator tried to carve out a centrist position - invoking the names of both Republicans and Democrats he's worked with in his first full year in the Senate.

He talked about his membership in the Gang of 14 - a group of senators who cobbled together a detente to avoid a filibuster on the nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts. It also sidestepped Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's threat of triggering the so-called nuclear option - the elimination of the filibuster rule.

Salazar did vote to confirm Roberts.