Losing in Advance, Yet Again
Well, as I cynically predicted two weeks ago, yet hoped fervently against, Senator Arlen Specter has been given the GOP seal of approval to be the next Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Which means we can kiss any hope of dislodging the judicial nomination logjam, and with it the last chance of bringing down the Imperial Judiciary, goodbye - this time, most likely, for good.
What explains this rabidly stubborn refusal of Republicans to learn from mistakes they endlessly repeat? How can it possibly be that the GOP, within two and a half weeks of its most comprehensive national triumph since the Coolidge Administration, has conceded a substantial portion of that hard-won mandate back to the Democrats? Why are conservatives afraid to win?
This time I'm not even bringing the Hugh Hewitt "pre-emptive surrender" crowd into it. I'm referring to others who recognized the overt threat the pusillanimous Pennsylvania pissant posed to the President's possible picks (among other issues, like tort reform) and yet are now in full rationalization mode.
"For Specter to be denied his chairmanship would have been a good thing, but yesterday it was confirmed that that is not going to happen. What has happened is even better," John Tabin wrote on the American Spectator site yesterday.
"Yesterday the famously prickly Specter issued a remarkably deferential statement, prepared at the behest of his fellow committee members, saying in part:
I have assured the President that I would give his nominees quick committee hearings and early committee votes so floor action could be promptly scheduled...
I... will use my best efforts to stop any future filibusters... If a rule change is necessary to avoid filibusters, there are relevant recent precedents to secure rule changes with 51 votes.
I intend to consult with my colleagues on the committee's legislative agenda, including tort reform, and we'll have balanced hearings with all viewpoints represented.
I have long objected to the tactic used in bottling up civil rights legislation in the Judiciary Committee when it should have gone to the floor for an up-or-down vote. Accordingly I would not support committee action to bottle up legislation or a constitutional amendment, even one which I personally opposed, reserving my own position for the floor."
Talk is cheap, right? Especially now, when Senate 'Pubbies actually had him over the only barrel he cared about. Amazingly, Tabin doesn't think so:
"One needn't simply take his word when Arlen assures us that he's no longer Snarlin'. Specter is caught in a virtuous cycle of mutual back-scratching with his junior Senator, Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Senate Republican who worked behind the scenes to save Specter's hide. First elected during the Republican wave of 1994 with just 49% of the vote and reelected in 2000 with just 52% of the vote against a weak Democratic challenger whom he outspent three to one, Santorum will be among the most vulnerable incumbents in 2006. [Not a universally held opinion by any means] Specter's debt to Santorum involves helping calm suburbanite voters who, wary of Santorum's staunch social conservatism, might be inclined to support a Democrat in large numbers. But perhaps more importantly, it means not turning conservatives against Santorum. Santorum will no doubt campaign in part on his ability, thanks to his leadership position, to advance the interests of Pennsylvania, and coming to Specter's aid may be cited as an example; it won't do for Specter's behavior over the next two years to anger Santorum's base."
The above is based upon two unsubstantiated assumptions: (1) that Specter's word can be trusted; and (2) that Specter gives a rat's ass what happens to Senator Santorum. Need I remind you all of the "Kerry-Specter" signs that sprinkled the Keystone state landscape this past year, in the immediate aftermath of Santorum and President Bush saving Specter's primary bacon from conservative rising star Pat Toomey? It would be entirely in character for Snarlin' Arlen to blow off this supposed "debt" and leave Santorum to twist slowly in the wind, if not back a RINO primary challenge against him. Such treachery is what the man is most famous for.
Finally comes this utter flight of fancy:
"If Specter makes trouble for conservative nominees during the next two years, his betrayal, he must now realize, will have consequences. His fellow Senators were nearly willing to throw away precedents to deny him his chairmanship because of conservative mistrust of the kind of things Specter might do as Judiciary Chairman; Specter would be a fool to give them an immediately recent record to point to."
What consequences? If Senate Republicans weren't "fully" willing to deny him the Judiciary gavel in the first place, what in the world is there to suggest that they'll be even "nearly" willing to take it away from him when - not "if" - he becomes Pat Leahy's remote control?
"The GOP seems to think that the only important political issues are those on the immediate political agenda," wrote NR's John O'Sullivan nearly four years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the Florida Insurrection. "They have an actual aversion to raising sensitive issues that have no immediate political payoff." Four years later, nothing has changed. GOPers refrained from pulling the trigger on passing over Snarlin' Arlen out of unfounded fears that he would lead a RINO stampede across the aisle, wiping out the gains made in the election. This despite no less than Lincoln Chafee's recent rebuff of newly-minted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's unsubtle seduction to make him 2005's answer to Triple-J. Yet they've now handed the Judiciary Chair over to a man who is an ideological foe, an iconoclastic grandstander, and whose word has repeatedly proven to mean nothing. And it's not going to be long in coming back to bite them in the ass.
"Until Republicans realize that today's political battles were decided yesterday, and that tomorrow's will be decided today, they will continue to lose in advance and to repent in retrospect," O'Sullivan concluded. To that counsel now has to be added the realization that any political battle - to say nothing of the next election battle in 2006 - is lost before it begins when you put a turncoat in command.
What explains this rabidly stubborn refusal of Republicans to learn from mistakes they endlessly repeat? How can it possibly be that the GOP, within two and a half weeks of its most comprehensive national triumph since the Coolidge Administration, has conceded a substantial portion of that hard-won mandate back to the Democrats? Why are conservatives afraid to win?
This time I'm not even bringing the Hugh Hewitt "pre-emptive surrender" crowd into it. I'm referring to others who recognized the overt threat the pusillanimous Pennsylvania pissant posed to the President's possible picks (among other issues, like tort reform) and yet are now in full rationalization mode.
"For Specter to be denied his chairmanship would have been a good thing, but yesterday it was confirmed that that is not going to happen. What has happened is even better," John Tabin wrote on the American Spectator site yesterday.
"Yesterday the famously prickly Specter issued a remarkably deferential statement, prepared at the behest of his fellow committee members, saying in part:
I have assured the President that I would give his nominees quick committee hearings and early committee votes so floor action could be promptly scheduled...
I... will use my best efforts to stop any future filibusters... If a rule change is necessary to avoid filibusters, there are relevant recent precedents to secure rule changes with 51 votes.
I intend to consult with my colleagues on the committee's legislative agenda, including tort reform, and we'll have balanced hearings with all viewpoints represented.
I have long objected to the tactic used in bottling up civil rights legislation in the Judiciary Committee when it should have gone to the floor for an up-or-down vote. Accordingly I would not support committee action to bottle up legislation or a constitutional amendment, even one which I personally opposed, reserving my own position for the floor."
Talk is cheap, right? Especially now, when Senate 'Pubbies actually had him over the only barrel he cared about. Amazingly, Tabin doesn't think so:
"One needn't simply take his word when Arlen assures us that he's no longer Snarlin'. Specter is caught in a virtuous cycle of mutual back-scratching with his junior Senator, Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Senate Republican who worked behind the scenes to save Specter's hide. First elected during the Republican wave of 1994 with just 49% of the vote and reelected in 2000 with just 52% of the vote against a weak Democratic challenger whom he outspent three to one, Santorum will be among the most vulnerable incumbents in 2006. [Not a universally held opinion by any means] Specter's debt to Santorum involves helping calm suburbanite voters who, wary of Santorum's staunch social conservatism, might be inclined to support a Democrat in large numbers. But perhaps more importantly, it means not turning conservatives against Santorum. Santorum will no doubt campaign in part on his ability, thanks to his leadership position, to advance the interests of Pennsylvania, and coming to Specter's aid may be cited as an example; it won't do for Specter's behavior over the next two years to anger Santorum's base."
The above is based upon two unsubstantiated assumptions: (1) that Specter's word can be trusted; and (2) that Specter gives a rat's ass what happens to Senator Santorum. Need I remind you all of the "Kerry-Specter" signs that sprinkled the Keystone state landscape this past year, in the immediate aftermath of Santorum and President Bush saving Specter's primary bacon from conservative rising star Pat Toomey? It would be entirely in character for Snarlin' Arlen to blow off this supposed "debt" and leave Santorum to twist slowly in the wind, if not back a RINO primary challenge against him. Such treachery is what the man is most famous for.
Finally comes this utter flight of fancy:
"If Specter makes trouble for conservative nominees during the next two years, his betrayal, he must now realize, will have consequences. His fellow Senators were nearly willing to throw away precedents to deny him his chairmanship because of conservative mistrust of the kind of things Specter might do as Judiciary Chairman; Specter would be a fool to give them an immediately recent record to point to."
What consequences? If Senate Republicans weren't "fully" willing to deny him the Judiciary gavel in the first place, what in the world is there to suggest that they'll be even "nearly" willing to take it away from him when - not "if" - he becomes Pat Leahy's remote control?
"The GOP seems to think that the only important political issues are those on the immediate political agenda," wrote NR's John O'Sullivan nearly four years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the Florida Insurrection. "They have an actual aversion to raising sensitive issues that have no immediate political payoff." Four years later, nothing has changed. GOPers refrained from pulling the trigger on passing over Snarlin' Arlen out of unfounded fears that he would lead a RINO stampede across the aisle, wiping out the gains made in the election. This despite no less than Lincoln Chafee's recent rebuff of newly-minted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's unsubtle seduction to make him 2005's answer to Triple-J. Yet they've now handed the Judiciary Chair over to a man who is an ideological foe, an iconoclastic grandstander, and whose word has repeatedly proven to mean nothing. And it's not going to be long in coming back to bite them in the ass.
"Until Republicans realize that today's political battles were decided yesterday, and that tomorrow's will be decided today, they will continue to lose in advance and to repent in retrospect," O'Sullivan concluded. To that counsel now has to be added the realization that any political battle - to say nothing of the next election battle in 2006 - is lost before it begins when you put a turncoat in command.
posted by JASmius at 10:12 PM
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