Posted on 05/20/2005 9:47:04 AM PDT by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Rick Santorum says he "meant no offense" by referring to Adolf Hitler while defending the GOP's right to ban judicial filibusters as Senate leaders prepared to start a countdown Friday to a vote over whether to stop minority senators from blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.
"Referencing Hitler was meant to dramatize the principle of an argument, not to characterize my Democratic colleagues," Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the GOP leadership in the Senate, said of his remarks Thursday.
Passions have been running high as senators argue over whether Republicans should allow the out-of-power Democrats to use Senate filibusters to effectively thwart President Bush from reshaping the nation's courts to his liking.
Republican John Warner and Democrat Robert Byrd are trying to avert that showdown, but Senate centrists have not been able to compromise on controversial nominees like Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen.
Byrd came under fire in March for comparing Hitler's Nazis and the Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. Santorum, a Pennsylvanian, criticized Byrd's remarks at the time, saying the Nazi references "lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate."
But on Thursday, Santorum said that Democratic protests over Republican efforts to ensure confirmation votes would be like the Nazi dictator seizing Paris and then saying: "I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It's mine."
Santorum later said in a release that his remark "was a mistake and I meant no offense."
The Republican Jewish Coalition applauded the statement. "Sen. Santorum is sensitive to the effect of his words and the inappropriateness of the analogy," Executive Director Matthew Brooks said.
If senators are forced to vote next week on Owen's nomination to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, centrists say a historic confrontation is sure to follow over whether filibusters of appellate and Supreme Court nominees should be prohibited during the rest of the Bush presidency.
"Once you start into the procedural votes, the real procedural votes on the first judge, then it's going to be very difficult to put the genie back into the bottle," said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. "I think most of us look at that as once you have that first vote, it's going to be very difficult to get a deal done."
Republicans were expected to announce Friday that the Senate would hold a test vote on Owen on Tuesday, and if she doesn't garner 60 votes - the threshold for overcoming a filibuster - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., then would move to have the Senate declare filibusters out of order for Supreme Court and federal appellate court nominees - a change that has been labeled the "nuclear option."
The Republican-controlled Senate has been debating Owen's nomination since Wednesday. "We will continue that debate," Frist said. "Ten hours, 20 hours, 30 hours, as many hours as it takes for senators to air their views. But at some point, that debate should end and there should be a vote."
While it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, Republicans intend to supersede the rule by a simple majority vote. With 55 seats, Republicans could afford five defections if all 100 members vote and still prevail on the strength of Vice President Dick Cheney's ability to break ties.
Democrats have threatened to slow the Senate's business to a crawl if Republicans prevail, and they served up a preview this week by invoking a rule that prevented some committees from meeting.
"The attempt to do away with the filibuster is nothing short of clearing the trees for the confirmation of an unacceptable nominee to the Supreme Court," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said. He accused the president of an attempt to "rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality" with his demand for a yes-or-no vote on all nominees.
Democrats already have blocked seven Bush nominees, including Owen, with filibusters. Centrists hope to strike a deal that would stop Frist from banning judicial filibusters while blocking Reid from filibustering all of Bush's most controversial nominees at the same time.
I would ask why a Republican is getting so much scrutiny in the press for this comment and the Democrats due it routinely and get no scrutiny for it, but of course all of us already know the answer.
due = do
(good grief)
nonsense. it is often used as a legitimate direct point-by-point comparison that stands on all fours.
no, it doesn't. our comparisons are usually accurate point-by-point comparisons (while the rats' are not). And that's good.
Jim Angle filling in for Brit, compared Rick to Robert KKK Bird. It sickend me to no end.
FNC becoming CNN clone.
of all the possible examples in all the history of the world...Hilter is on point ?
You lose too
the analogy is on point. philosophers understand what it means for a comparison/analogy to be "on point".
i win. YOU lose.
Senator Santorum's actual words:
"We must tread very carefully before we go radically changing the way we do business here, which has served this country well. We have radically changed the way we do business here.
"Some are suggesting we are trying to change the law, we are trying to break the rules. Remarkable hubris. Imagine, the rule that this is the way we confirm judges has been in place for 214 years, broken by the other side 2 years ago, and the audacity of some Members to stand up and say, How dare you break this rule, it is the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me, how dare you bomb my city. It's mine. This is no more the rule of the Senate than it was the rule of the Senate before not to filibuster. It was an understanding, an agreement, and it has been abused. ..."
Do not misunderestimate The Beast. The only answer I have to your questions is "not yet". Recognizing the personality is the first step towards stopping the eventual rise of a tyrant.
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