[nj26]

Now that we have 55 seats in the Senate, maybe we should just throw him out of the party (along with Lincoln Chafee.)

As with McCain, the media will be all over every word that he says, using him to create a wedge of "Republican dissent" against Bush's picks, and he will facilitate the depiction of Bush's nominations as "extremists."

By contrast, as Democrat #46, nobody is going to care what his opinion is. Who is asking Blanche Lincoln or Dick Durbin what they think of the nominations?

[vannrox]

"...During the George W. Bush administration, Specter has supported most of the president's picks for the federal bench. In May, however, he forced the Judiciary Committee to send the nomination of Leon Holmes to the Senate floor without a recommendation ? an embarrassing setback for the White House. (As of this writing, there still hasn't been a floor vote on Holmes.) In July, he voted to approve Bill Pryor's nomination, but not before announcing that he might change his mind and vote against Pryor on the Senate floor.

This behavior is no surprise, though it would take on added significance if Specter were to become the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as he is now in line to do. Orrin Hatch of Utah is the current chairman, but he's term-limited in that position. Next comes Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who isn't expected to give up his control of the powerful Finance Committee. After him sits Specter, who has wanted the top job at Judiciary for years. "There's a lot I would like to do," he says, citing violent crime, antitrust law, and privacy as leading concerns. Several of his colleagues on the committee, however, are worried about the prospect of a Chairman Specter in 2005. "He could take the committee in a more liberal direction," says one of them. "It would definitely be a challenge..."