Posted on 11/12/2004 2:26:45 PM PST by swilhelm73
An e-mailer makes excellent points: For instance, was Specter ever going to vote for Bill Pryor (who had to be recess appointed)? That there are even such questions, gets to this temperament issue…
First, it must be noted that Specter's claim to have supported every Bush nominee isn't entirely true. It's only true that he supported CLOTURE on every Bush nominee. But, unless I missed something, he never promised to support Bill Pryor on final passage; indeed, reading between the lines, it was easy to take his hint that he actually would oppose Pryor on final passage. (Again, this bears checking out; Specter may have quietly changed his tune during a later cloture vote.) Meanwhile, he quite publicly gave succor to those who were pushing some of the trumped-up charges against Pryor, especially the bogus charges on RAGA, which Specter said were troubling. And, if memory serves correctly, there were other nominees that Specter never committed to supporting on final passage (although I didn't pay quite the attention to later filibustered nominees that I did to Pryor, so, again, this might require a fact-check).
Second, it seems to me that, in light of Frist's speech last night, conservatives should demand that, if the GOP senators refuse to block Specter for the chairmanship outright, they should at least block his ascension unless and until he commits not just to voting against a filibuster, but to SUPPORTING ANY RULES CHANGE that would end filibusters of judicial nominees. In other words, even if it comes to the so-called "nuclear option," Specter should commit to supporting it, and thus killing the filibusters altogether. If he won't make a firm commitment on that front, he should not be chairman.
Finally, back to the reasons to oppose Specter as chairman regardless: The one argument I haven't seen made is that it is absolutely crucial to keep a solid, conservative staff on the Judiciary Committee. The chairman controls the staff. If Specter becomes chairman, I guarantee he'll purge the staff of its conservatives (not that the whole existing staff is conservative, by the way, but it's at least semi-conservative right now) and replace it with a staff full of Specterites. That will matter not just for processing nominees, but for oversight and drafting of all manner of legislation, from tort reform to the Patriot Act to.... well, you know what Judiciary handles…
Bork the Specter!
I have no doubt that Specter would vote against Pryor.
GWB and Rove are smart guys. They decided to support Specter. I'm quite sure the president's men covered all the angles on this one. They decided that a happy Spector was better than a pi$$ed off Specter. (Specter, by the way is f'ing brilliant) A senator, particularly a newly re-elected senator, answers to nobody. The same logic that led Rove to support Specter over Toomey applies now in the chairmanship debate. Make nice with this guy because he is smarter than most people ever dream of being. If he votes his conscience on any nominee, I have no problem with that. He would be duty bound to get the president's nominees an up or down vote and I think he would live up to that.
Can we trust Specter? Why take the chance?
Possibly intersting trivia...Specter lost his first GOP senate primary to none other than John Heinz.
A question that has yet to be answered by any of Specter's supporters...well, except for the legion of Leftwingers taking up his banner.
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You make two assumptions;
That Bush didn't just support Specter to maintain control of the Senate, whatever the other costs of his re-election might be.
That Bush and Rove made the right choice in trusting Specter with *nothing* to bind him save his word. Which he also gave to the other side...
Do we REALLY believe that a Democrat President would try to get a PRO-LIFE nominee for the Supreme Court or even the lower Federal courts?
Of course we don't believe it! And neither should President Bush, who is pro-life, have to bow and scrape to the Democrats and send an abortion-lover as a nominee.
Get real, Arlen!
And it is obvious to us that you, Arlen, were backed FINANCIALLY by Soros for a reason.
Sorry, this Chairmanship is too important a position.
Senator Kyl should be selected as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
We are a big tent party, right? We would not want to apply a litmus test to anyone for a committee chairmanship,right?
Let's not anger Arlen. If we can't trust the judgement of Rick Santorum on this, who can we trust.
No, we cannot trust Rick Santorum, unfortunately.
I was shocked to find out that, during the campaign for Arlen, Rick called Toomey an extremist and a too-far right winger.
So what will the "pi$$ed off" Specter do to them? They now have a 10-seat majority over the democrats, not counting Cheney's vote. Lott had just as much seniority and Senate clout as Specter does and Republicans took him down when he got too big for his britches.
Specter's history proves he's unreliable and his "word" is no good. To hand him the SJC is to say goodbye to all Bush's important federal bench appointments.
What a relief to know this, I been worrying all this time for nothing then, thanks.</sarcasm>
Yep, that's where the rubber meets the road for pro-life nominees.
This is a golden opportunity to get another vote for the rules change from one of the 'moderates' who wouldn't tend to support it.
Our 'moderate' Republicans need to be protected from having to vote on judicial filibusters too.
GWB and Rove are smart guys...
I don't doubt that.
In fact, they are probably going to smart their way into being the minority party after the results of the '06 mid term election are in because they insist on demonestrating to their base that once they vote for them, they can go fly a kite. There opinion does not matter.
They did all they could to tick off their base after the '00 elections. This resulted in a higher turnout in '04 than in '00. So I guess they said, "In '00 we tried to tick off our base by lavishly funding the National Endowment of the Arts so "artists" could show pictures of Christ under elephant shit and all that did was increase the turnout in '04. Let us really show the contempt we hold them in now and in '06 our candidates will win in a landslide."
Well all good things must come to an end. If thy persist [and I believe that they are going to]their will be a landslise, only it will be in the Democrats favor. Their base will stay home while the Democrat base will go vote.
It is their choice.
Actually, had the Democrats nominated a decent middle of the road candidate, instead of a traitorous liberal flip-flop, their policies would have bitten them in the a$$ big time.
Specter claims he will not stop strict constructionist justices? Odd, considering his explanation for stopping Bork is that Bork is a strict constructionist. He certainly is lying to someone.
I have spent a lot of time thinking, reading and talking with highly informed people, such as yourself. At first, I was concerned about the effect on Santorum and the objective of a deal on filibuster. Now, I agree with you. Specter cannot be trusted. If he flips to the other side, that's okay. He already votes that way. I think he poses a real threat to the Judiciary Committee and the real political objectives of this presidency.
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