Rick’s argument for Specter is weak and false. Whoever the Republican on the Judiciary committee would have been instead of Specter would have supported Roberts and Alito in committee and certainly Toomey would have voted in the full senate. This is bull.
This "team sport" thinking is BS.
Term limits needs to become a reality if there is any hope of turning things around without a great deal of pain.
Toomey doesn’t bring moderates along to get you to 60 votes when there was a 51-49 situation in the Senate.
If Specter was so bad then... how does any Republican get behind a man that promised to run to the left of Ted Kennedy on social issues. What kind of judges is Romney going to nominate?
It is not bull, it's the truth. When conservatives were insisting that Specter not be given the Chair of the Judiciary Committee the argument that was used BY HIM and others to support his position was that he had promised to support Bush's judicial nominees as a condition for the support of teh president and Santorum in his primary battle against Toomey.
Look it up!
Weak and false? If you consider that the senate was up for grabs in that election year. Toomey was no lock to win the general. The possibility existed that there would be no Republican chair of that committee. That was the calculation Rick made and the president supported. This argument has been brought up as many times as his house in Penn Hills. Weak and false.
That’s not a reason to not support Rick Santorum.
Let’s not forget that Specter also managed to get Clarence Thomas confirmed earlier, over one of the worst liberal smear jobs ever. I won’t say that Specter did it for the right reasons—but he did it, and few others could have done it as well.
The same was true of Roberts and Alito. Few other politicians at that time had the guts or the political savvy to have brought that off. The Democrats could have filibustered either one of them, if they had chosen to. But Specter did a terrific job managing the hearings in a way that made the Democrats fearful of filibustering. Don’t tell me that George Bush could have done that. He had a long record in office of never attacking or arguing with his enemies, no matter what.
Later on, Specter went back to his usual ways, and then switched parties and, thankfully, backed himself into a corner and lost his career.
But he was already famous for confirming Clarence Thomas. And he kept his promise of confirming Alito and Roberts, before he defected. Bush chose those three great, pro-life Justices, but, ironically, he never would have gotten them confirmed if not for Arlen Specter.
As for Toomey, he probably would have lost that year. But he came back later at a better time, and won.
You no NOTHING about anything. I have finally decided that. You bring in opinions and ZERO facts. Get your act together NOW.
Why do you say that? Specter lead the borking of Bork! Specter often worked with the DemocRATS against Republicans even when Republicans had a nominal majority in the Senate, in fact especially when we had a majority.