Hugh Hewitt Blows the Washington Post Out of the Water on Misquoting Hatch RE: Judge Filibusters

"Introducing Washington Post Reporter Terry Neal to Google, and the Dangers of Relying on Ralph Neas Talking Points." ---

Yesterday the Washington Post's Terry Neal wrote about the looming showdown in the Senate in a column titled "Attitudes Toward Filibuster Are About Power, Not Partisanship." Neal's tale was straight from the Democrats' talking points, and began thus:

"Both sides of the debate on the judicial filibuster issue will insist they're fighting over facts. But in reality the fight is over what it always is in Washington -- power.

There is no consistent Democratic or Republican position on the Senate filibuster. There is only rhetoric. The only consistency in the debate seems to be coming from voters, who appear to favor a balance of power in Washington, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll ."

How does he prove that everyone has been inconsistent? Well, there are plenty of pull quotes from Democrats demanding up-or-down votes for nominees from when the Dems were in the minority and Bill Clinton was president. But here's how Neal tries to impale Orrin Hatch on the same spit:

"Eleven years ago, when Republicans were still in the minority, Sen. Orin [sic]Hatch (R-Utah) said the filibuster tool should be used because 'the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.'"

I expect Democrats to pull anything from anywhere they can and distort what they have to to advance their lame arguments that majorities can't confirm nominees when 41 senators don't want to. But shouldn't a Washington Post reporter at least google the quote he's been passed? Try doing that with the Hatch quote along with the name "Orin Hatch." The first entry is a People for the American Way site devoted to the filibuster, and there is Hatch's quote as Neal used it.

The second entry is to a May 6, 2003 statement to the Judiciary Committee made by Senator Hatch which explains how he objects to the use of this snipped quote which, denied its context, is used to completely the opposite effect that Hatch intended when he first spoke it in 1994:

"I would also like to take this opportunity to set the record straight on an allegation in the written testimony of one of the witnesses we will hear from today, Marcia Greenberger. Ms. Greenberger’s testimony noted that I described the filibuster as 'one of the few tools that the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.' The citation for this quote is to the 1994 floor debate on the nomination of Lee Sarokin to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Her testimony erroneously suggests both that there was a filibuster of Judge Sarokin’s nomination, and that I supported it. Here is what I actually said, placed in its proper context:

'Mr. President, one of the games that is being played around here is that whenever the majority leader wants to move something along, he files cloture, whether or not anybody has decided to use extended debate. I have heard the majority leader—who is a person I have great regard and respect for—say how beset we are with filibusters in this body.

Naturally, in the last week or so of a session, there is going to be the threat of some filibusters. It is one of the few tools that the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents. But this is not a filibuster. I find it unseemly to have filed cloture on a judgeship nomination—where I have made it very clear that I would work to get a time agreement—and make it look like somebody is trying to filibuster a Federal court judgeship.

I think it is wrong, and I think it is wrong to suggest in the media that this is a filibuster situation, because it is not.

I personally do not want to filibuster Federal judges. The President won the election. He ought to have the right to appoint the judges he wants to.'

For the record, then, there was in fact no filibuster of Judge Sarokin’s nomination, and I specifically did not support a filibuster of that or any other federal judge’s nomination."

What Neal's abuse of the much-abused Hatch quote tells us is that Neal is either comfortable working with Democratic talking points that he did not suspect were cut-and-paste jobs, or that he didn't care since it helped make his (false) point that everybody does it. What it illustrates is why the Democrats should lose this fight despite the confusion of some folks like Senator Hagel: Because any serious student of Senate history knows a filibuster has never been used against any appeals court nominee and only once against a Supreme Court nominee, and in that instance to avoid embarrassing Abe Fortas, a sitting Supreme Court Justice about whom there were serious ethics questions, bipartisan opposition, and who lacked majority support.

Update: I didn't notice the missing "r" in "Orrin" in Neal's original column, and repeated the error in my post, which I have now corrected. A bad enough mistake for me, but in the Washington Post?

Another examply of the media craven coverage that has made them totally non-credible on nearly everything. Why do they need to adopt the Democratic line on EVERYTHING, then write stories to support the Democrats' positions on things? Why no stories exposing the Democrats and their hypocrisy on the filibuster issue? Why no stories covering the fact the constitution doesn't allow for the filibuster of judgeships? Why no stories supporting the idea that a dually elected Republican president has the right to have his nominees confirmed by a simple up or down vote in a properly elected Republican Senate? Why no stories pointing out that no other judge nomination has ever been subjected to filibuster? Why only uniform support in the media for the idea that Dems. have a right to obstruct and delay everything in Congress as a substitute for actually having won a majority, and playing this disgusting, obstructionist game just because they know they can't get their way by being elected to a majority? We don't have a free press in this nation. We have a controlled party organ no different than Pravda or Tass in the USSR.

Hugh Hewitt Blows the Washington Post Out of the Water on Misquoting Hatch RE: Judge Filibusters

Just another example of the numerous layers of MSM editors and fact checkers not available to the Internet Bloggers!

>> We have a controlled party organ no different than Pravda or Tass in the USSR.

at least with pravda and tass people implicitly knew they were getting the news from the perspective of old communists.

it is different today, as your post and about a hundred thousand others daily prove.

i predict that in a year there will be a lot of these apparatchik's looking for real jobs. most of them will last about a week on the web before retiring to farm potatoes.

OK. Somebody should send it to Limbaugh and Drudge, and anyone else who will help spread the word.

The Washington Post tells lies every day, but this one is especially egregious. They don't care if they are caught lying, however, unless enough people are made aware of it to damage their reputation and influence. If only a few conservatives notice it, so what?

Lying is a useful tool in their eyes, and they don't even mind being know as liars, but they cannot afford to let the knowledge spread too far.

As Machiavelli said, an experienced Prince uses lies sparingly and only for important matters, because if you become known as an inveterate liar it reduces your credibility and authority.

The only consistency in the debate seems to be coming from voters, who appear to favor a balance of power in Washington, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll ."

The only poll that matters regarding "balance of power" is the one taken on the first Tuesday of November in even years. If those polled people send an imbalance of power to Washington, so be it.

Public opinion polls of "adults" who may not even be citizens, should not be used to suggest that the make-up in Washington DC should be something other than the elected balance based on vote outcomes.

-PJ

"Why no stories covering the fact the constitution doesn't allow for the filibuster of judgeships?"

And .. this issue is the one which galls me the most.

But .. to hear the dems tell it .. it's the repubs who are breaking a 200 yr old tradition - because the dems believe the public is too stupid to know the difference. The old media STILL DOESN'T GET IT!

There is no shame in the WP following orders from the DNC and publishing as news what the DNC requires. It has been done this way for years and it is unfair to make an issue of it now!!

I still do not understand why the good guys haven't tied the use of the filibuster by the dems to keep the Jim Crow laws in place and to segregate blacks over many years, around the necks of the current dems, especially Grand Kleagle Byrd, Al Gore (his father), and open up another front on the issue.

Filibuster=racism=democrat; what a perfect "big" issue to use for now and 2006/2008! Hillie was an Arkie and Arkies filibustered to keep blacks down. Arkies fought the Civil War to keep blacks in slavery; Republicans freed the blacks then and will do it again. Stop the dem filibuster, stop the burning crosses, stop the nightriders, stop the dem filibusters!

Mr. Hewitt proves, once again, that he has more "brain power" than all of the editors, reporters, and publishers of the Washington Post. In my opinion, the only difference between the Washington Post and a bag of horse manure is the bag !!

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