Thank YOU Sir, for pointing out the obvious corruption of Ronnie Earle, who should be indicted himself for abuse of the prosecutorial authority residing in his office.
And screw this 'all or nothing' attitude I keep hearing from Republicans. That is EXACTLY the mindset that led to the DemocRATs becoming the minority party of special interests, of the abortionists, of the protected minorities, of the environmental wackos, blah-blah-blah, etc., etc.
No, I'm not a big fan of Snarlin' Arlen, but as has already been pointed out, his fellow GOP Senators now have him by the short hairs, and you can bet the rent that he's been put on notice that he better tow the damn line when it comes to getting the President's nominees through committee and down to the Senate floor for an up or down vote.
Remember this: Specter has an ego. That ego does NOT want to see his final term in office end up as a partisan disaster in which his own party turns on him, or even (in the extreme), expels him. He wants to go down in the history books as the most fair minded and thoughtful chairman in the history of the SJC. (whether he does or not, will be up to the historians)
Conservatives have won the battle already regarding Specter. Yes, I have my doubts about him but that is why we will employ the time honored method of Ronald Reagan in that we will 'trust, but verify'. Specter will be under the microscope for the remainder of his years in office and if he deviates in the slightest, he is going to catch pure, living conservative GOP Hellfire.
The Republican Party is becoming more conservative even as we watch the news each day. How else to explain the departure of Colin Powell (yes, yes, he was going to stay only for one term, we've been told) and his replacement, Condi Rice? SHE is going to kick diplomatic ass from one corner of this Earth to the other, and she will be solidly in the President's corner without equivocation. AND, I'll bet that Condi is going to clean out the anti-U.S. rabble and rubbish within the State Department bureaucracy too.
Yes, I know all about the SES and how bureaucrats are 'protected', but they're not protected from being assigned to our new embassy in Antarctica, now are they?
And Porter Goss is going to clean out the CIA of that nest of vipers that were doing everything possible to blindside the President on Iraq and every other foreign policy/intelligence issue, and hopefully - there will not only be resignations and firings, but a few indictments and prison terms for leaking intelligence data to the media before this is all over.
As Rush Limbaugh might say 'my friends, we are in good hands'...so keep your powder dry, sez I.
Conservatives and the GOP (I hope)believe that Conservative Judges, strict Constitutionalists are a corner stone of America. This maxim is a plank and is nailed down, it is not a special interest group but a fundamental building block. Without that block, the country is doomed and political correctness rules, and changes daily.
Accordingly, I do not want Specter to make one (or more) Borked up decisions before he is removed. Yes, I am against abortion, but the underlying Constitutional matter governs. The two are synonymous, but separate.