Posted on 11/06/2004 5:37:09 AM PST by notkerry
TIME TO START CALLING Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina:
He is trying to play peacemaker, i.e., trying to tell conservatives to accept Specter's more recent "clarifying" statements.
"trying to tell conservatives to accept Specter's more recent "clarifying" statements"
Memo to Lindsay Graham: you want out next? I want 3 new judges like Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Got it?
The president has hit his first post-election pothole: Senator Arlen Specter warned Bush that he would block any judicial nominees that he deemed too conservative
November 05, 2004, 7:52 a.m.
The Door for Specter
http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200411050752.asp
Republicans should forgo tradition when determining the next judiciary chairman.
That didn't take long. On Wednesday, President George W. Bush hit his first post-election pothole — one created by a fellow Republican whom he had saved from political oblivion earlier this year. Senator Arlen Specter (R., Penn.), who by virtue of Senate seniority rules is in line to become the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, fired a shot across the president's bow, warning Bush that he would block any judicial nominees that he deemed too conservative.
Bush has often said that he does not apply any form of litmus test in choosing judges, apart from their ability to put aside their policy views and interpret the law as written. But Senator Specter made clear that he would apply a specific test. "When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter told a reporter, going on to compare Roe with Brown v. Board of Education. He offered unsolicited advice to the president that Senate Democrats would be unwilling to confirm "Bush's conservative judicial picks," and said that he "would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I mentioned."
“Specter seems to have divined
a mandate for him to start dictating
to President Bush on judges.”
The senator should perhaps have been mindful of what happened on Tuesday. Faced with what was supposedly the most evenly divided electorate in our history, President Bush garnered 51 percent of the vote, a figure higher than that of any Democratic candidate for president in the last 40 years. For the second election in a row, the Senate moved further right, giving Bush a 55-seat Republican majority. Tom Daschle, the obstructionist-in-chief of the Senate, is sitting at home today trying to figure out what went wrong — and everyone knows that judges and social issues are part of the answer. Yet Specter seems to have divined in all this a mandate for him to start dictating to President Bush on judges.
Put aside the sheer gracelessness of it. Without Bush, Specter would have lost to Rep. Pat Toomey in the Republican primary this year and be observing confirmation battles from a well-deserved retirement. Senator Specter's comments — which are in keeping with his track record on this issue — demonstrate a lack of the necessary temperament and instincts to manage the crucial job of overseeing the confirmation of President Bush's judges.
The comparison of Roe to Brown was a gratuitous and vicious insult to the bulk of his own party. Pro-lifers are not segregationists, and Specter's side of this debate is not that of human rights. Nor is Roe settled law, the way Brown is. Specter noted that the Court had reaffirmed it in the 1992 Casey decision. But Casey modified Roe in ways that Roe's author disliked. In 2000, the justices who gave us Casey were unable to agree on whether it protected partial-birth abortion. And if Roe is so settled, why does Specter feel it necessary to exert himself to defend it?
It is one thing for Specter to believe that abortion should be unregulated. What he is saying is that the voters of no state should be allowed to act on a different view — and that he will go to the mat to block the confirmation of judges who would allow them a say. And given the incompatibility of Roe with a properly restrained view of the enterprise of judging, Specter's test would eliminate justices who are conservative on other issues as well.
It follows that Arlen Specter should not be elevated to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We know that the Senate is a clubby place, and that its Republican members will be loathe to disregard Specter's seniority. But Senate custom should be disregarded in this instance. Specter's litmus-test attitude (after pressure on Thursday, he backtracked, in a statement, saying he has no litmus test — but we know him too well to take the chance) is wrong in principle, because it demands that judges pledge fealty to an anti-constitutional decision. For the social conservatives who just elected Republicans to office for the very purpose of getting sound judges confirmed, Specter's elevation would not just be a symbolic slap in the face but an actual betrayal. Find the man another sinecure.
President Bush's judicial appointments will be his determine his presidential legacy to our nation's history. He should pick the best minds, and not let Senator Spector derail any pro-life nominees.
I called my Senator (George Voinovitch) and left my opinion that Senator Spector should not become Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Whether Voinovitch gets these messages or not, I made the attempt. All freepers should make this their number one priority on November 8.
BY THE WAY, try this toll free phone number to reach the Capitol Hill operator: 866-727-4894. Ask for your Senator by name/state. It was working on Friday. If the line is busy, try again. The real live operators usually pick up on the first ring. This is not a hoax.
Let's keep up the pressure. Has everyone signed the GOPUSA online petition?
Let him know that Specter said what he said. Let's get this over with now rather than allow Specter to slip through and then WE have a problem! BORK him now; isn't that what he did in the past?
Forget about getting NEW conservative judges with Specter calling the shots. He won't let Bush *replace* retiring conservative judges with new conservative judges.
It was an act of Judicial Activism which bestowed the right for women to extinguish the life growing in their wombs. There is no right to murder the unborn. Roe v. Wade needs to be overturned and if it means livng in two Americas, so be it. Isn't that what we have already?
Also, the unwillingness to revisit and right something done over 30 years ago illustrates why we never want to give ground to the homosexual community on the issue of marriage. They are beside themselves after this election because they feel they have lost some ground. They hope the courts will mandate against the voice of the people, overturning the amendments banning homosexual marriage. They hope the courts will find a right to marriage when marriage only makes sense where there is the possibility of family: mom and dad with their children.
Dear Senator, I know you mean well with respect to appointing Specter as Chair of the Jusiciary Comm. But SPECTER has SPOKEN TOO! Please BORK him now or any mistake in appointing him may well reflect in the next election. Let us not loose the GOP majority. Thansk you.
Contact at: http://lgraham.senate.gov/index.cfm?mode=contactform
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that is what I wrote, but with fewer misspellings. Sorry.
How about doing something that isn't self destructive. Complain about a rat.
SPECTOR MIGHT AS WELL BE A RAT. HE CAN LEAVE AND TAKE CHAFEY AND SNOW WITH HIM. WE SHOULD BE RECRUITING THE CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS TO COME TO OUR SIDE AND KICK THESE MORONS OUT.
The people of South Carolina should have listened to the rumors of him being a homo because it's looking clearer that it is true.
Thanks for the info! Since the issue of judges was the most important consideration in MY vote, I won't let a parsel-tongued obstructionist with a "litmus test" get the nomination to bottle up more Bush nominees!
Let me get this straight. We should invite in the rats who have rejected our party every election, but we should kick out Specter. The man Dubya, Cheney, Allen, Santorum and the rest of the Republican party worked so hard to re-elect. Brilliant.
You are so full of it. Why not just admit you hate the Republican Party...Go back to DU.
DeWine, not Voino. DeWine is ON the committee, and will be up for re-election sooner than VOino. Moreover, he IS pro-life, despite some of the other positions that he goes wobbly on. This is the way to get to DeWine.
If Specter is allowed to head the Judiciary Committee, there will be a six year internal fight among Republicans that will depress the vote for Republicans in 2006, 2008 and 2010.
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