Plain and simple: Hugh is wrong.
More than half a million Pennsylvanians foresaw the current major crisis that is facing us regarding the potential appointment of Arlen Specter as chair of the senate Judiciary Committee. That’s why, despite big money/strong-arm tactics/profligate lies/temporary democrat primary registration crossovers (all committed by the Specter forces alone), Pat Toomey, a virtual unknown, came within 1.5% of winning the Pennsylvania Republican senate nomination in April. The four-term incumbent Specter won by a mere 16,000 votes, with more than one million votes cast. And Toomey would have won by a comfortable margin, had the President and our junior senator placed principle before political protocol and endorsed him rather than his unworthy opponent, who sports a long history of deceit and betrayal.
I am also certain that Toomey would have won the senate seat handily on Tuesday, and not only would we not be faced with the specter of a Specter chairmanship of Judiciary, but we would have a junior senator with major Reagan-esque leanings sitting in one of Pennsylvania’s senate seats. But, as they say, that’s water under the bridge. I simply hope that President Bush now has a new, and exquisitely personal, understanding of the phrase biting the hand that feeds you. Arlen Specter has one mean and powerful bite.
To those Pennsylvanians who have followed Specter’s infamous four-term career, it reads like an immutable script: (1) enter, stage right, having counted on moderates and conservatives to return you to the stage to begin with; (2) spend about five and a half years moving consistently stage left, while arrogantly defending yourself against those who, dutifully and sincerely, remind you that you are not playing the role you were cast to play; and then (3) half-heartedly meander back toward the right for the six months preceding your next re-election bid, hoping that the move right will eclipse the previous five and a half years of leftist role-playing. It always worked … until Pat Toomey shined a spotlight on the shenanigans. We’re wise to you now, Arlen. And it’s a good thing for you this is most likely your last term. Toomey would defeat you resoundingly in 2010.
Specter’s duplicity dates back to the mid-1960s, when he sat on the Warren Commission and formulated the ‘single-bullet theory’ to explain Oswald’s assassination of JFK. There are many right-minded people who believe he is responsible for a major cover-up of that crime, and its ramifications.
Around twenty years later, when Ronald Reagan nominated Jeff Sessions (who now providentially/coincidentally sits on the Judiciary Committee with Arlen) for a federal judgeship, Specter betrayed his constituents by voting with the democrats in killing the nomination. This betrayal marked the beginning of the now-common act of killing the nominations of those with whom you don’t share a political ideology … and the Constitution be damned. Before Sessions’ defeat, a federal judicial nominee had only been turned down once in the four decades since the Roosevelt administration. So Arlen Specter effectively set the stage for politicized judicial confirmations – a mighty arrogant, and toxic, unconstitutional precedent that laid the groundwork for the awarding of judgeships based on leftist political ideology.
And Arlen continued wielding his leftist-agenda-driven power the following year, when Reagan nominated Robert Bork to sit on the Supreme Court. Bork had a sterling resume as a judge, and a Yale law professor (one needs only read his Slouching Towards Gomorrah to comprehend the sheer genius, judicial purity, and uncompromising allegiance to the Constitution that this giant of a man represents). Specter played a major role in Bork’s defeat, and I, for one, will never forgive him for his vicious character assassination of a man whose shoes he isn’t fit to shine.
Some believe that Specter regained his principles (although it’s difficult to regain that which one never possessed to begin with) when he defended Clarence Thomas against the left’s attacks in 1991. But one only needs to look at the timing of the Thomas hearings to understand Specter’s newfound fairness. The hearings occurred less than a year before Specter’s next re-election bid. Too little time to erase from the memory of conservative Pennsylvanians yet another betrayal. So he was forced to do what was right … simply because of the timing of the hearings.
Specter’s final betrayal occurred during the Clinton senate impeachment trial in 1998, during which he could have played a major role in ridding us of the most immoral, treasonous, criminal President we have ever known. Instead, he effectively ignored the US Constitution, and instead relied on (purported) ‘Scottish Law’ to allow the President to continue his reign of horror. He asserted that under the venerable ‘Scottish Law’ (which appears to trump the American Constitution), there are three possible verdicts in an impeachment trial: guilty, not guilty, and not proven. Voting ‘not proven’ (and enjoying the dubious distinction of being the only senator to do so) allowed him a cowardly retreat from alienating either his genuine leftist base, or the conservative/moderate supporters he needed to fool, yet again.
Chief Justice Rehnquist was so taken aback by the stupidity of Specter’s argument that he ordered Specter’s verdict to be recorded as ‘not guilty’.
Arlen Specter’s crimes against our republic have been many. But I believe the four above are the most grievous. He should not even be sitting in the US Senate, much less chairing the committee that will have enormous impact on the seating of federal judges, in an era in which activist judges have assumed the arrogant role of declaring the Constitution irrelevant when it comes to matters of leftist societal engineering.
As I see it, the two most uplifting results of Tuesday’s election are (1) that we can now hope to enjoy four more years of effective national leadership, where the war on terror -- the most important issue of our, or any, time -- is concerned, and (2) that we also have a President in office who will nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court, so that the court will take a much needed turn to the right, and place the Constitution back on the lofty pedestal where it rightly belongs.
I urge every American to call (letters, petitions, and e-mails are not as effective) your own state senators, Majority Leader Frist, and the President, and share your gnawing concerns about the long-term disastrous effect that a Specter chairmanship would have on the moral/societal fabric of our republic – during a time when we should be rebuilding, not further dismantling.
~ joanie
159 posted on 11/05/2004 7:44:45 PM PST by joanie-f
“President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation’s future, and the nation responded by giving him a mandate.” – Remarks by Vice President Cheney introducing President Bush for his victory speech, Ronald Reagan Building, November 3, 2004. President Bush’s margin of victory proves that we “have a narrowly divided country, and that’s not a traditional mandate…the number-one item on my agenda is to try to move the party to the center.” – Sen. Arlen Specter, November 3, 2004. Senator Arlen Specter's shocking comments the day after President Bush's decisive re-election raise troubling concersn |
|||
Specter's record over the last 20 years demonstrated a pattern of very troubling conduct on Judiciary Committee issues
The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee must be someone devoted to the Constitution as written and the rule of law
|
|||
Specter
Posted by guitarist
On News/Activism 11/05/2004 7:41:13 PM PST · 80 replies · 1,183+ views
HughHewitt.com ^ | 11/5/04 | Hugh HewittHugh Hewitt's Take on Arlen Specter
Posted by MplsSteve
On News/Activism 11/05/2004 10:22:33 PM PST · 54 replies · 904+ views
Hugh Hewitt ^
It is not an unstabilizing request. Abortion has done more to destailbize this country than any one time change in a Senatorial procedure ever could.
Specter will cause more damage to future gnerations of this nation, if he isn't stopped and stopped NOW!!
Dear Senator Frist,
461 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-4205
I am overjoyed about the recent general election results. I worked very hard--going door-to-door and passing out literature for several days--to get George W. Bush re-elected. I am also extremely pleased that Americans choose to give Senate Republicans a majority.
However, I am very concerned about the possibility that Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania may become head of the Senate Judiciary committee. He was very much part of defeating the VERY good judge Robert Bork. My concern lies in the fact that he has stated his opposition to any pro-life nominees. To me, this amounts to the same type of obstruction tactics that Americans rejected when they voted to unseat Tom Daschle.
We have already had 4 years of out of control filibustering by democrats who wish to hold back the judicial process and the president's right to appoint judicial nominees. I appeal to you as a voting and concerned citizen to not allow a Republican to become an obstacle to the President's mandate from the people.
Please Senator Frist, use your authority as Senate Majority Leader to stop Arlen Specter from being a road block to the President! Please keep him off the Senate Judiciary Committee!
Also, use your Senate majority to stop the filibuster! The American people despise these tactics, and are counting on you to fight for them now that their choices have been made.
Sincerely,
Arlan Specter, the famed former Philadelphia prosecuter takes center stage once again. One of the reputed villains in the Oliver Stone classic film JFK, author of the infamous 'single bullet theory' and accuser of Anita Hill now appears to be the radical lefts lone remaining hope of stopping the momentum of George W. Bush and the Republican machine. Specter, a pro choice Republican, is set to head the Senate Judiaciary Committee which oversees President Bush's Judicial and Supreme Court nominations. The Democrats suffered a major setback in the November 2nd elections when Mr. Bush became the first American President in 16 years to recieve an actual majority of popular votes. The Democrats no only sufferred losses in both houses of Congress, the Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, highest ranking Democrat in Washington, also was voted out of office by his home constituants. After such a massive defeat and repudiation of the Democratic Party and its leadership by the American voters, the Party is now looking to one of its longtime demons as its only hope to slow the momentum for change fostered by the recent Republican victories.
An ironic twist of fate borne on the November 2nd elections. Likewise Senator John McCain of Arizona, accaimed warhero with establish conservative credentials, became in the year 2000 Elections the darling of the media solely based on George W. Bush's frontrunner status during Republican Primary elections. Senator McCain seemed top be the only challenger to George Bush and thus won eternal praise and affection of liberals and the elite media. John Kerry spoke of Senator McCain as a possible Vice President or Defense Secretary in a Kerry Administration. As of November 3rd, Senator McCain is now the Republican frontrunner for 2008 when Mr. Bush's term expires. Senator McCain actively worked for President Bush's reelection and thus no the republicna establishment owes him a debt based on loyalty. In the coming months as these facts become more apparrent, Senator McCain will loose his reputation among liberals, Democrats and journalists as 'a broadminded individual', 'right thinking Republican', 'moderate' and even 'liberal Republican' to the more fitting 'reincarnation of Hitler' all to familiar to all Republican frontrunning Presidential candidates.
bttt