Posted on 05/24/2005 2:46:51 AM PDT by Liz
The real winner in the Senate judge deal could be President Bush — because it opens the way for Congress to finally start getting things done.
Right after the deal was unveiled, Democrats were visibly relieved while Republican conservatives were livid, fuming about a "cave" by centrists led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Talk radio and conservative bloggers went wild.
Why? Because the odds were that if push came to shove, Republicans would have had the votes to kill all filibusters of judicial nominees and humiliate Democratic leaders.
No wonder Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was cheering, even though the deal guarantees confirmation of jurists Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens and William Pryor — all of whom he's blasted as unacceptable extremists.
"Armageddon has been averted, and thank God," said Schumer, well aware that Democrats could have come off much worse.
That's why conservative Republican activists in the key states of Iowa and New Hampshire are already vowing revenge against McCain if he runs for president in 2008. But the White House put on a positive spin — after all, Bush will now get three of his top-priority appeals court judges confirmed.
And, if the Senate had come to what Democrats called "the nuclear option" — a vote to strip them of filibuster power over judges — all hope for cooperation in the Senate would be over.
Now the success of the judge deal could encourage centrist Democrats — perhaps Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) — to start working toward compromise on other issues, as Bush has been hoping.
A Democratic staffer predicted one result will be the confirmation of Bush's controversial nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton "No one is going to want to filibuster him now," the staffer conceded.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Frist may not have had anything to do with this deal. McCain can't stand not to be in the limelight. I have always felt that Frist has not been a strong leader. There are things that he can do to leverage his recalcitrants into doing the right things. There are things that they want and need for the folks back home (unless they're all like Karl Lenin who doesn't give a damn about the folks back home) that Frist can obstruct, not bring to a vote, cause to die in committee, etc. He has the power. Its about damn time he uses it for US.
Precisely!
Count me in as one of these livid Republicans.
Russ Feingold, the liberal senator from Wisconsin, has said he doesn't like this deal at all. Feingold is the one who was hounding nominee Pryor for rescheduling a family vacation to Disney World after finding out Gay Days were being held when he had planned to go. If Feingold is upset, I'll take some comfort in that.
This battle ain't over. Three Bush nominees will get a vote and be confirmed. As for the judges who don't get up-or-down votes, it's now President Bush's duty to replace them with equally conservative nominees. If he does and Democrats filibuster them, the deal should be off and the nuclear option back on the table.
Let's see. How will this be spun as this was the Presidents idea and his enemies underestimated him again. I bet Rush has the same talk later today after his grim doom and gloom about all this for the past few weeks.
He looks just like John what's-his-name from NC.
And that would be different from the past five years -- how? What was the last (or first) glimmer of cooperation from Senate dems since 2000?
I'm going to take comfort where I can find it this morning. Severin just called it the most bogus deal since Chamberlin announced peace in our time. Time to regroup and go on to fight another day. Severin agrees with you that it's not a cease fire, but just a peace treaty that will not hold.
We need to make an example of one of the Rinos. It may cost a Senate seat, but it would be well worth it if liberal Republican Senators have a real fear of not winning their primaries.
John McCain is - publicly and privately - a malignant man and who poses the largest danger to whichever party which he claims to belong
Lindsay Graham is a weasely dumpling of a lawyer, and no one should expect him to ever be otherwise
The US Senate is more jealous of its own perogatives than it is of rights guaranteed under the Constitutution
Senators who have real lives and occupations (i.e., Bill Frist) are at a disadvantage in dealing with lifetime politicians
Democrats stuff their party with loyalists beginning at the bottom, and party discipline is not just an abstract term
Primaries, primaries, primaries
Give generously of time and money, but give it wisely... and give it specifically to those who earn it.
Crap, one could go on and on... but McCain and Graham deserve the worst that politics can dish out; this morning, I believe I'd even stand and applaud the ghost of Preston Brooks were he to glide through the wall, smack the living crap out of the both of them and spit on the remaining dozen gutless wonders on the way out.
YES, and we will.
I remember Lindsey Graham supporting McCain for president in 2000.
Sorry kid... doesn't cut the smell.
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