Regarding "Snarlin' Arlen"
I've read NRO's already voluminous opining opposing Senator "Snarlin' Arlen" Specter ascension to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the wake of his ill-considered candor regarding the President's judicial selections. I've also read Hugh Hewitt's countervailing warnings that this could unravel the hard-won rebuilt GOP senate majority.
Ultimately, I don't think Senate 'Pubbies will strongarm Specter out of his long-relished gavel. But I am persuaded that they should do so.
I look at it this way: Specter owes his continued presence in the Senate at all to George W. Bush. It was the White House, along with fellow Pennsylvanian Rick Santorum, that went to bat for him in the GOP primary against the strong challenge of conservative GOP Congressman Pat Toomey. Had the President not done so, Specter would have lost and, so the theory at the time went, his seat, and the keystone state, would fall to the Democrats.
In the event, Bush lost (and was most likely cheated out of) Pennsylvania anyway. One wonders what a Toomey general election candidacy might have done to stimulate additional conservative turnout in the Western part of the state. Certainly there wouldn't have been any "Kerry-Toomey" yard signs, as there were "Kerry-Specter" ones.
But if the President needed any further evidence that he backed the wrong primary horse, this lapse of honesty on Specter's part should make it a slam dunk:
"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely." After comparing Roe with the 1954 desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education, he high-handedly added that he "would expect the President to be mindful of the considerations which I mentioned."
These comments might not matter so much if the above wasn't typical of Specter's long history of double-dealing. This is the same man, after all, who, during his quixotic 1996 presidential bid, wrote, "I want to strip the strident anti-choice language from the 1996 Republican National Platform and will lead the fight to do so at the next National Convention"; the same man who, after complaining about religious conservatives who would not support a pro-choice nominee, cracked, "I don't think that the Republican Party should be blackmailed by any special interest group," as if it was still 1963 and Nelson Rockefeller still ran the quaint little rump sect that evangelicals helped turn into a national powerhouse; the same man who, in a remarkable impersonation of a liberal Democrat, sneered that he "will not give up our party to radical extremists without a fight," before calling pro-lifers "the far-right fringe"; and the same man who, with oblivious audacity, declared his resentment of "people like Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and Pat Buchanan trying to give litmus tests to determine who can be a Republican candidate."
I guess in Snarlin' Arlen's ken, all litmus tests aren't equal.
Suffice it to say, most, if not all, of us on the Right simply do not trust Arlen Specter to be anything except the disloyal, opportunistic christophobe he's always been throughout his regrettably extended Senate tenure. That suspicion would have been present regardless, but would not have surfaced into open opposition had his true feelings not surfaced again, at the worst possible time.
Would Specter and the other RINOs bolt the party, Jim Jeffords-like, if the former were denied his gavel? I doubt it. By his very treacherous nature he's not a man who inspires much in the way of loyalty (other than the President's, though that seems awfully easy to obtain, in inverse proportion to the degree it is earned). And if a gavel, ANY gavel, is what Specter truly wants, he's certainly not going to get it by crossing the aisle and joining the minority. Jeffords' jump was a once-in-a-blue-moon circumstance, and in any case was undone at the next election. Besides which is that, like John McCain, Specter's status as Big Media novelty would disappear like a fart in a wind tunnel. As a pachyderm he can play iconoclast and always attract an adoring audience; once he defected, he'd be just another donk.
What it comes down to is that at some point, principle has to enter the equation. And despite what Hugh appears to think, that does overlap to a large degree with practicality.
Consider: in the 107th Congress, after Jeffords bailed, all the President's appellate court choices were bottled up in the Judiciary Committee at the hands of Democrat chairman Patrick Leahy. In the 108th Congress, restored to a two-seat majority, Republicans passed said nominees out of the Judiciary Committee only to see them filibustered by the Democrat minority. In the 109th Congress, their majority expanded to ten seats, are GOPers really supposed to accede to the President's judicial selections once again being bottled up in the Judiciary Committee, at the hands of a "maverick" Republican chairman?
Sorry, Hugh, but on this one you're out to lunch. If Lincoln Chaffee wants to hit the ejection lever, I say let him. A majority isn't a majority when one or two dissidents can blackmail the remainder with their Andy Warholesque grandstanding. Not to mention thwarting the will of the 59 million-plus Americans who re-elected George Bush, in no small part, to make those judicial selections, which is some 58 million more than voted to keep "Snarlin' Arlen" in the Senate.
If a smaller majority is what it takes to be an effective - and more honest - majority, then so be it.
Regardless, don't mourn for the self-styled Scotsman. Remember Trent Lott a couple of years ago? Remember his threats to quit after he was ousted as Majority Leader and let Mississippi's then-Democrat governor pick his replacement? Remember his consolation prize, chairmanship of the Rules Committee? I'm sure Bill Frist would take good care of Specter as well.
Pity it probably won't come to that.
For us all.
Ultimately, I don't think Senate 'Pubbies will strongarm Specter out of his long-relished gavel. But I am persuaded that they should do so.
I look at it this way: Specter owes his continued presence in the Senate at all to George W. Bush. It was the White House, along with fellow Pennsylvanian Rick Santorum, that went to bat for him in the GOP primary against the strong challenge of conservative GOP Congressman Pat Toomey. Had the President not done so, Specter would have lost and, so the theory at the time went, his seat, and the keystone state, would fall to the Democrats.
In the event, Bush lost (and was most likely cheated out of) Pennsylvania anyway. One wonders what a Toomey general election candidacy might have done to stimulate additional conservative turnout in the Western part of the state. Certainly there wouldn't have been any "Kerry-Toomey" yard signs, as there were "Kerry-Specter" ones.
But if the President needed any further evidence that he backed the wrong primary horse, this lapse of honesty on Specter's part should make it a slam dunk:
"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely." After comparing Roe with the 1954 desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education, he high-handedly added that he "would expect the President to be mindful of the considerations which I mentioned."
These comments might not matter so much if the above wasn't typical of Specter's long history of double-dealing. This is the same man, after all, who, during his quixotic 1996 presidential bid, wrote, "I want to strip the strident anti-choice language from the 1996 Republican National Platform and will lead the fight to do so at the next National Convention"; the same man who, after complaining about religious conservatives who would not support a pro-choice nominee, cracked, "I don't think that the Republican Party should be blackmailed by any special interest group," as if it was still 1963 and Nelson Rockefeller still ran the quaint little rump sect that evangelicals helped turn into a national powerhouse; the same man who, in a remarkable impersonation of a liberal Democrat, sneered that he "will not give up our party to radical extremists without a fight," before calling pro-lifers "the far-right fringe"; and the same man who, with oblivious audacity, declared his resentment of "people like Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and Pat Buchanan trying to give litmus tests to determine who can be a Republican candidate."
I guess in Snarlin' Arlen's ken, all litmus tests aren't equal.
Suffice it to say, most, if not all, of us on the Right simply do not trust Arlen Specter to be anything except the disloyal, opportunistic christophobe he's always been throughout his regrettably extended Senate tenure. That suspicion would have been present regardless, but would not have surfaced into open opposition had his true feelings not surfaced again, at the worst possible time.
Would Specter and the other RINOs bolt the party, Jim Jeffords-like, if the former were denied his gavel? I doubt it. By his very treacherous nature he's not a man who inspires much in the way of loyalty (other than the President's, though that seems awfully easy to obtain, in inverse proportion to the degree it is earned). And if a gavel, ANY gavel, is what Specter truly wants, he's certainly not going to get it by crossing the aisle and joining the minority. Jeffords' jump was a once-in-a-blue-moon circumstance, and in any case was undone at the next election. Besides which is that, like John McCain, Specter's status as Big Media novelty would disappear like a fart in a wind tunnel. As a pachyderm he can play iconoclast and always attract an adoring audience; once he defected, he'd be just another donk.
What it comes down to is that at some point, principle has to enter the equation. And despite what Hugh appears to think, that does overlap to a large degree with practicality.
Consider: in the 107th Congress, after Jeffords bailed, all the President's appellate court choices were bottled up in the Judiciary Committee at the hands of Democrat chairman Patrick Leahy. In the 108th Congress, restored to a two-seat majority, Republicans passed said nominees out of the Judiciary Committee only to see them filibustered by the Democrat minority. In the 109th Congress, their majority expanded to ten seats, are GOPers really supposed to accede to the President's judicial selections once again being bottled up in the Judiciary Committee, at the hands of a "maverick" Republican chairman?
Sorry, Hugh, but on this one you're out to lunch. If Lincoln Chaffee wants to hit the ejection lever, I say let him. A majority isn't a majority when one or two dissidents can blackmail the remainder with their Andy Warholesque grandstanding. Not to mention thwarting the will of the 59 million-plus Americans who re-elected George Bush, in no small part, to make those judicial selections, which is some 58 million more than voted to keep "Snarlin' Arlen" in the Senate.
If a smaller majority is what it takes to be an effective - and more honest - majority, then so be it.
Regardless, don't mourn for the self-styled Scotsman. Remember Trent Lott a couple of years ago? Remember his threats to quit after he was ousted as Majority Leader and let Mississippi's then-Democrat governor pick his replacement? Remember his consolation prize, chairmanship of the Rules Committee? I'm sure Bill Frist would take good care of Specter as well.
Pity it probably won't come to that.
For us all.
posted by JASmius at 9:09 PM
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