Posted on 11/07/2004 3:55:20 PM PST by joanie-f
I believe the three most overpowering crusades that this administration, and the next congress, have to initiate with historically unprecedented passion and resolve are:
(1) containing the threat of terrorism, no matter the financial and (unfortunate) human cost, and no matter the time commitment
(2) seeing to it that Supreme Court and federal judgeship vacancies are filled with justices who have a resolute reverence for the original intent of the Constitution
(3) crushing the massive, unconstitutional power over every aspect of our lives held trial lawyers, by instituting major, unrelenting tort reform measures
There are other, generally economic, issues – major overhaul of Social Security, major revamping of the tax code, and regaining sanity in federal spending and monetary policy -- that need addressing. But the three issues above affect the very lives of every American (and every American in utero), and the minimal acceptable quality of life that every prosperous, free people should be willing to endure.
I do not recall in my lifetime the Republican party enjoying such positive odds for genuine conservative, Constitution-respecting governance. When was the last time a Republican President enjoyed a majority of this size in both houses of Congress? Not during any of our lifetimes, for sure.
There has been no better time in our history for a President and congress to ‘spend their political capital’ to do what is right for this republic. There has been no better time to turn a deaf ear to calls for bipartisanship (from a party that only practices such when it is to their own partisan advantage), calls for healing (from a party whose ideological credo thrives on class/racial/social division), and calls for societal compassion (from a party that employs that altruistic tool only in order to increase the socialist, nanny-state power of government).
In virtually every campaign speech that this President has made over the past year, he stated that he would nominate federal judges who revere the original intent of the US Constitution. With the prospect of one, and maybe two or three, Supreme Court justices retiring within the next four years, there is no greater calling than for him, and senate Republicans, to do all that is within their executive/legislative power to see to it that newly-appointed members of the Supreme Court, and federal judgeships, faithfully adhere to their Constitutional job description.
There is nothing in the Constitution that requires that the chair of the senate Judiciary Committee to be elected on a seniority basis. The senate may elect anyone from among its membership to chair that all-important committee. It is now time to discard dangerous and liberty-erosive tradition and political protocol and, instead, elect as chairman of the judiciary committee a Constitutional scholar who reveres the genuine Constitutional definition of the judicial branch of government.
Under such a common sense, preserve-America definition, Alren Specter does not qualify.
More than half a million Pennsylvanians foresaw the current major crisis that is facing us regarding the potential appointment of Arlen Specter as chair of the senate Judiciary Committee. That’s why, despite big money/strong-arm tactics/profligate lies/temporary democrat primary registration crossovers (all committed by the Specter forces alone), Pat Toomey, a virtual unknown, came within 1.5% of winning the Pennsylvania Republican senate nomination in April. The four-term incumbent Specter won by a mere 16,000 votes, with more than one million votes cast. And Toomey would have won by a comfortable margin, had the President and our junior senator placed principle before political protocol and endorsed him rather than his unworthy opponent, who sports a long history of deceit and betrayal.
I am also certain that Toomey would have won the senate seat handily on Tuesday, and not only would we not be faced with the specter of a Specter chairmanship of Judiciary, but we would have a junior senator with major Reagan-esque leanings sitting in one of Pennsylvania’s senate seats. But, as they say, that’s water under the bridge. I simply hope that President Bush now has a new, and exquisitely personal, understanding of the phrase biting the hand that feeds you. Arlen Specter has one mean and powerful bite.
To those Pennsylvanians who have followed Specter’s infamous four-term career, it reads like an immutable script: (1) enter, stage right, having counted on moderates and conservatives to return you to the stage to begin with; (2) spend about five and a half years moving consistently stage left, while arrogantly defending yourself against those who, dutifully and sincerely, remind you that you are not playing the role you were cast to play; and then (3) half-heartedly meander back toward the right for the six months preceding your next re-election bid, hoping that the move right will eclipse the previous five and a half years of leftist role-playing. It always worked … until Pat Toomey shined a spotlight on the shenanigans. We’re wise to you now, Arlen. And it’s a good thing for you this is most likely your last term. Toomey would defeat you resoundingly in 2010.
Specter’s duplicity dates back to the mid-1960s, when he sat on the Warren Commission and formulated the ‘single-bullet theory’ to explain Oswald’s assassination of JFK. There are many right-minded people who believe he is responsible for a major cover-up of that crime, and its ramifications.
Around twenty years later, when Ronald Reagan nominated Jeff Sessions (who now providentially/coincidentally sits on the Judiciary Committee with Arlen) for a federal judgeship, Specter betrayed his constituents by voting with the democrats in killing the nomination. This betrayal marked the beginning of the now entirely too common act of killing the nominations of those with whom you don’t share a political ideology … and the Constitution be damned. Before Sessions’ defeat, a federal judicial nominee had only been turned down once in the four decades since the Roosevelt administration. So Arlen Specter effectively set the stage for politicized judicial confirmations – a mighty arrogant, and toxic, unconstitutional precedent that laid the groundwork for the awarding of judgeships based on leftist political ideology. And the liberty-eroding effect of this perversion of power on every aspect of American society has been monumental.
And Arlen continued wielding his leftist-agenda-driven power the following year, when Reagan nominated Robert Bork to sit on the Supreme Court. Bork had a sterling resume as a judge, and a Yale law professor (one needs only read his Slouching Towards Gomorrah to comprehend the sheer genius, judicial purity, and uncompromising allegiance to the Constitution that this giant of a man represents). Specter played a major role in Bork’s defeat, and I, for one, will never forgive him for his vicious character assassination of a man whose shoes he isn’t fit to shine.
Some believe that Specter regained his principles (although it’s difficult to regain that which one never possessed to begin with) when he defended Clarence Thomas against the left’s attacks in 1991. But one only needs to look at the timing of the Thomas hearings to understand Specter’s newfound fairness. The hearings occurred less than a year before Specter’s next re-election bid. Too little time to erase from the memory of conservative Pennsylvanians yet another betrayal. So he was forced to do what was right … simply because of the timing of the hearings.
Specter’s final betrayal occurred during the Clinton senate impeachment trial in 1998, during which he could have played a major role in ridding us of the most immoral, treasonous, criminal President we have ever known. Instead, he effectively ignored the US Constitution, and instead relied on (purported) ‘Scottish Law’ to allow the President to continue his reign of horror. He asserted that under the venerable ‘Scottish Law’ (which appears to trump the American Constitution), there are three possible verdicts in an impeachment trial: guilty, not guilty, and not proven. Voting ‘not proven’ (and enjoying the dubious distinction of being the only senator to do so) allowed him a cowardly retreat from alienating either his genuine leftist base, or the conservative/moderate supporters he needed to fool, yet again.
Chief Justice Rehnquist was so taken aback by the stupidity of Specter’s argument that he ordered Specter’s verdict to be recorded as ‘not guilty’.
And Arlen Specter’s probable lame duck status in this, his fifth term, means that, without concern for re-election for the first time in a quarter of a cerntury, he can move left over the next four years … and remain there.
Arlen Specter’s crimes against our republic have been many. But I believe the four above are the most grievous. He should not even be sitting in the US Senate, much less chairing the committee that will have enormous impact on the seating of federal judges, in an era in which activist judges have assumed the arrogant role of declaring the Constitution irrelevant when it comes to matters of leftist societal engineering.
There has never been a more opportune, or more urgent, time in our history for a President and congress to remain true to the conservative base that placed them in office. As regards (1) through (3) above, any compromises with leftist ideologues, and their barking cohorts in the media and academia, to which this administration and congress agree will amount to a betrayal of the populations of that overwhelming number of red states that sent a resounding message on Tuesday that they want American back on track.
The forty-third President, and members of the 109th congress, must govern like the conservative leaders they purport to be. The red states, and many inhabitants of the blue, believe it’s a matter of now or never.
Senate Majority Leader:
Republican Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
~ joanie
But I agree with you that the media is trying to drive a wedge by mentioning it.
BTTT for level-headedness.
Of course I think Specter should be sent to a different committee.
But since the question of strategy has come up....apparently there is some problem with Specter not being on this committee (??)
I agree that that would be the most 'amicable, politically (man, do I hate even typing that word!) feasible' solution. But I don't think that would sit well with Specter, since he has had his eye on the chairmanship of that particular committee for decades.
We have to take seriously TakeChargeBob’s assertions earlier on this thread that Specter is capable of merciless vindictiveness (he wasn’t dubbed the cruelest man in the senate – by his fellow senators, his staff, and even members of the sympathetic mainstream, media -- for nothing). When it comes to critical votes, and filibuster threats, he could easily mean the difference between victory or defeat.
At the same time, we cannot, under any circumstances, allow him the chairmanship of Judiciary – no matter the promises he makes in order to obtain it. His promises aren’t worth the breath it takes to voice them. So I believe your suggestion (keep him on the committee) is the only viable solution – and let the chips fall where they may. If he chooses vindictiveness over graciousness (and who in his right mind would better on the latter?), so be it.
~ joanie
Your solution is no solution. Your premise is incorrect. "Retribution" and "anger" has nothing to do with removing Specter, so your supposed emotional check you call "strategy" is not strategic at all. It isn't about giving place to anger over 'smarts' on how to manipulate the vote. It is get this guy out of the way now. He is an enemy plain and simple. Period. You will not in any way be able to control him issue by issue with 'leverage'.
The reason I suspected you of being a Democrat is that they expressly depend on emotional arguments/lies and your only 'reason' for why he shouldn't be removed is a direct attempt to portray your 'strategy' as the emotional high ground and as such 'ergo' the 'option of choice'. The filibuster needs to be met head on and in the open for all to see just how far they will go--which will work out for us even more. On a certain level you want them to filibuster. The more they filibuster, the more they erode their base. Democratic Planet is built on emotion. They'll break their own supposed emotional etiquette on which they stand as 'better than everyone else' just once too often and their base will puke--it is already over for them. You are going on a premise of how politics was played in the past as a model for the present and future. That is over. We just voted on that.
We're not hiding in the bushes plotting a battle plan. We're occupying ground already won and digging in with crew served weapons against an enemy determined to kill us and our children through any means possible, to include abortion and homosexuality. They are deceived. They're not doing it on purpose. But they are still doing it. There is more to be done. But giving up hard fought ground already won is no solution at all. We are genuinely in the right here. Giving place to fear is not wisdom.
Pass the ammo, brother. Don't tell me we shouldn't be here. What you put up with always comes back and bites you.
It tells us that, for five terms, they have exhibited one of two things: (1) agreement with the leftist agenda, or (2) a very short memory.
But don't be too hard on Keystone staters this time. They came within 16,000 votes/1.5% (many of which were temporary democrat union crossover registrants) of unseating a powerful four-term incumbent. That sends a mighty strong message about the new awakening that is taking place within the borders of Pennsylvania.
Thank you.
The only other option is giving Specter a leadership position on another "very desirable" committee. What that might be I don't know....someone else might can sort out those details
...and as long as Specter could do minimal damage in that desirable position...
..really gets complicated, but it can be done. Maybe some other extra rewards thrown in for him giving up the Jud. committee. Would have to be a lot, so he can save face.
Surely this is workable. He doesn't own the party.
> ping <
Words well said.
I don’t think your option of providing him a leadership position on another committee would sit any better with him than his remaining simply a member of Judiciary. This man will not be denied what he has wanted for decades, and, should the Republican members of Judiciary do the right thing, he will be inconsolable. We need to prepare for the special kind of vindictiveness that only he can dish out.
He doesn't own the party.
He is not, and has never been, a Republican. Not only doesn't he own the party, but he loathes much of what it stands for.
He is my senator. Years ago, whenever he would cast a particularly pernicious vote, I would write him a scathing letter, telling him my opinion and asking him to justify his cowardice and/or betrayal. At first, I used to receive responses (and they weren’t form letters). But that didn’t last long. The responses ended altogther, and, needless to say, so did my efforts to make him explain his broken promises.
Many years ago, shortly after my last letter to him, I attended a town meeting of his, and introduced myself before asking my question. Believe it or not, I believe he recognized my name – and, unlike his other responses to other people at that meeting (which were condescending and patronizing), he was very careful in his choice of wording, and very respectful in his demeanor. As it turned out, I was the last questioner of the evening, but I had hoped to corner him afterwards (since his answer was, of course, nothing but double-speak), but he did not stay around to talk with his constituents. (I am in no way insinuating that he didn’t wish to talk with me, in particular. Far from it. He avoids talking to his constituents altogether. Prefers talking at them.)
Thanks for the excellent insights.
~ joanie
P.S. I’ve been watching ‘We Were Soldiers’ on TNT tonight as I have been answering the responses on this thread from my laptop. If that movie doesn’t drive home the reasons we need to shield this republic from ‘leadership’ the likes of which is represented by the senior senator from Pennsylvania, I don’t know what does.
Good night, all.
I guess he and Jim Jeffords can go sing duets in the Senate cloak room.
The funniest reply on this thread!
(But I'd pay good money for the CD.)
I've been watching Mission: Impossible, but of course that is no reflection on the task at hand.
Or maybe so....their mission DID get accomplished.
or what if the Senate Leadership agreed to waive the 6-year term limit for Hatch and allowed him to continue as chair?
"Turncoat Harmony" ($15.99 @ amazon.com; 2 for $30)
My feeling is Hatch would not be a good choice either. But then again, someone more knowledgeable on Hatch would be better to comment about this.
Well said, Joanie.
And not only should Dubya and the GOP ‘spend their political capital’ like drunken sailors, they ought to crush ANY call for "bipartisanship" while righting the ship, and imposing their long overdue conservative will upon the Party of Death.
And what of the reptilian Arlen Specter?
Yes, MUCH the blame for this despicable human being wielding ANY power within the dominant 55-strong GOP lies at the feet of George W. Bush who ignored his ideological brethren -- Pat Toomey -- in the primary. Wasn't Dubya's support of Specter over Toomey worth 1%?? Of course it was...
"It is now time to discard dangerous and liberty-erosive tradition and political protocol and, instead, elect as chairman of the judiciary committee a Constitutional scholar who reveres the genuine Constitutional definition of the judicial branch of government."
Amen, sister....
By denying Specter, this is Dubya only chance to redeem himself after having sold out Toomey
Orrin has become more weathervane-prone in his aging. We need someone who will stand uncompromising on his principles. John Kyl is the best bet for that.
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