This may be moot, even if true. I believe I read recently that the WH was told by members of the gang of 14 on BOTH sides of the aisle that Owens and Brown would be filibustered. If we have a beef, it is with the gang of 14...and they give cover to the partisans on both sides with their special interest supporters.
I contend that Bush was left with few options that would be "confirmable." Wanna make a difference? Get a more conservative Senate. I know this leads us to "Bush is the one who supported Spector over Toomey". And believe me, I feel for everyone in PA, I am fortunate to be in a state with Bond and Talent.
I still think that it is little short of amazing that we have two Republican senators in a Blue State like Pennsylvania. If we REALLY want to make our efforts count, we will work to get rid of Democrats in hardcore red states like Conrad, Johnson, etc. Why beat your brains out in Blue states? Trying to defeat an idiot like Patty Bin Laden Murray taught me the futility of that strategy.
Lets get the red states more solid. 60 needs to be the goal, or 51 CONSERVATIVE senators.
Even if they would have filibustered, so what? He got a fight he didn't want by picking Miers. Wrong war, wrong time, as JF'in K used to say. Would have been better off fighting the bad guys instead of us.
You're on the right track here. I've said this until I'm blue in the face, but once more, we are reaping the fallout from not doing the constitutional option when we had a chance. THEN and THERE is where the fight should've been waged to settle this once and for all and codify a simple majority as the threshold to be met for approval of judicial nominations, because of the SCOTUS implications. And I fear that chance is now gone with the wind.
Good idea. Let's get rid of Bayh ;)
Then at least 1 is changing his tune from earlier in the year.
GOP leaders, sensing the Democrats' bind, expressed confidence yesterday that the Senate will confirm Bush's eventual nominee, no matter how ideologically rigid. "I think there is every expectation, every reason to believe that there will be no successful filibuster," Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on "Fox News Sunday."Under the "Gang of 14" accord, the seven Republican signers agreed to deny Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) the votes he needed to carry out his threat to bar judicial filibusters by changing Senate rules. The seven are implicitly released from the deal if the Democratic signers renege on their end. Yesterday, key players suggested the seven Democrats will automatically be in default if they contend a nominee's ideological views constitute "extraordinary circumstances" that would justify a filibuster.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of the 14 signers, noted that the accord allowed the confirmation of three Bush appellate court nominees so conservative that Democrats had successfully filibustered them for years: Janice Rogers Brown, William H. Pryor Jr. and Priscilla R. Owen. Because Democrats accepted them under the deal, Graham said on the Fox program, it is clear that ideological differences will not justify a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.
"Based on what we've done in the past with Brown, Pryor and Owen," Graham said, "ideological attacks are not an 'extraordinary circumstance.' To me, it would have to be a character problem, an ethics problem, some allegation about the qualifications of the person, not an ideological bent."
Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), a leader of the seven Democratic signers, largely concurred. Nelson "would agree that ideology is not an 'extraordinary circumstance' unless you get to the extreme of either side," his spokesman, David DiMartino, said in an interview.
Pact May Hinder Efforts to Block High Court Nominee
By Charles Babington and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 4, 2005; Page A01
If this were true, why isn't the Whitehouse conveying that message to conservatives? They've tried every excuse in book, including insulting the intelligence of their most faithful backers. Why don't they just come and tell it straight-up: while Miers isn't the most qualified, she's the best qualifed who can be confirmed. It would go a long way towards pacifying the right; I thought that a man like Bush knew that honesty is the best policy.
"If we have a beef, it is with the gang of 14...and they give cover to the partisans on both sides with their special interest supporters."
Not so fast.........If we are going back that far, let's lay the blame at Frist's feet then. He had nuke power at his disposal.
Cool take them on.. Let there be blood in the aisles instead of blood on the steets.. All we need is a president thats not a coward.. The bully pulpit could be easily used to hammar the gang of 14 into the congressional rug.. but it would take a president that will not Unite with the first bully to try to mug him.. but then we have a "Unite'er not a Divide'er" as president.. threaten him and he will unite with you..
Theres a word for that.. and its not "Unite'er".. Neville Chamberlain was also a Unite'er.. First, gut shuck the RINOs and then lynch Sandy Burgular as openers.. indite or investigate Hillarys campaign fraud with Peter Paul and scare ther hell out of congressional democrats with a national voter fraud investigation accross the board..
Make the last three years of his presidency a jihad against fraud of any kind, especially voter fraud.. with a reward for federal government employees and contractors and voluteers(polls) that will report it..
I do dream a lot.. LoL.. Unless the president most of congress are complicit in those activitys in some way.. All kinds of fraud just might have become what politics has universally become.. {and they are ALL afraid WE will find out}
Yep. First place to start and push hardest, but we also need to pick those RINOs that have weaknesses. I think McCain could be weakened on several issues, immigration, CFR, abortion...