Posted on 11/19/2004 1:50:49 PM PST by Ed Current
It’s predictable that after a major election, one political party begins a round of bitter infighting and finger pointing. What’s surprising is when it’s the winning party. But ever since Arlen Specter, a day after winning a fifth term, said it was unlikely that the senate would confirm judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, the Republicans have been fighting a nasty battle. Social conservatives have been flooding the offices of Republican Senators with demands that Specter not become the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Current chairman Orrin Hatch is supposed to turn the gavel over to Specter under G.O.P. caucus rules.
Specter has been lobbying his colleagues and defending his record. On the other side, the Christian Defense Coalition held a pray-in on the Capitol steps. The judiciary committee and the G.O.P. caucus won’t vote on Specter’s fate until January, but Hatch and other members came out in support of Specter Thursday and it seems unlikely he’ll be voted down. No senator has come out against him, probably because no senator wants to mess with the seniority system that determines chairmanships.
Still, it’s amazing how quickly the religious right has redirected all the energy they used to help re-elect President Bush toward scuttling Specter’s chairmanship. They seem to be the only people in politics who didn’t need a post-election vacation. It shows they believe Bush’s victory has given them a mandate to control the Republican party. But it also shows that they are insecure about the party’s loyalty to them, and that the Republicans could be facing four years of growing tension and squabbling.
Specter is well-known in Washington for being abrasive, hard-driving and not a team player. But it’s amazing he didn’t see this coming. He was one of just two incumbent GOP senators who faced a serious primary challenge this year. Congressman Pat Toomey took on Specter in the spring with a lot of help (and funds) from far-right allies. Conservatives have hated Specter for years; the National Review called him "the worst Republican senator" last year. But Bush and Pennsylvania’s other senator, Rick Santorum — both of whom have a lot more in common with Toomey — came to the moderate’s rescue, campaigning for him and calling his renomination crucial for Bush’s chances to win the state in November. Bush lost the Keystone state, Specter won and immediately made his Roe comments, leading conservatives feeling that, as they suspected, Specter can’t be trusted with their agenda.
Conservatives point to exit polls to argue that evangelical Christians are responsible for Bush’s victory. (There’s some evidence to support that, but a lot more suggests they were just one of several key factors.) Many conservatives feel that now is the best time to take their mandate for a test drive. Even if they don’t scuttle Specter’s ascension, they will have fired a warning shot toward any Republicans taking their support for granted. Bob Jones III, president of the conservative Christian university wrote a congratulatory letter to Bush the day after the election and told the president, "In your re-election, God has graciously granted America — though she doesn’t deserve it — a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate ... Don’t equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ."
But the social conservatives are also attacking because they’re afraid. They have been here before. In late 1980 they were thrilled after they helped elect Ronald Reagan but that excitement evaporated when the Administration told them the social agenda would have to wait until Reagan’s economic plans passed. Many members of the far right still believe that while Reagan put their issues on the table, he never seriously fought for any of them. After four decades in politics the religious right has few tangible victories to point to. Abortion is legal, prayer is not back in schools and now they are fighting same-sex marriage. George W. Bush may be a born-again Christian who speaks their language, but he has spent the past week talking about Social Security, tax reform and world affairs. During the campaign, he signalled he might support civil unions, which social conservatives believe is an endorsement of homosexuality.
And the Christian right isn’t the only uneasy constituency in the Republican party. Fiscal conservatives unhappy about the deficit, isolationists and foreign policy realists unhappy about the war and libertarians hostile to the Patriot Act all held their tongues during the fight against John Kerry, but may be ready to start talking. Still, Republicans can take comfort in one thing: It’s better to be the divided party in power than a unified party on the outside.
Tom Minnery, vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, said he was hopeful that Specter "will respond in the fashion that he apparently has promised, so that the president's judicial nominations and other important legislation can go through quickly and cleanly."
Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, told the Washington Post that pro-life judicial nominees should be able to get through the committee, even with Specter at the helm.
Despite the assurances from Specter in a statement he released Thursday, others were concerned about the result of the Specter debate.
"It seems that the Senate is protecting the rules of the club more than what won the election," Jayd Henricks, director of congressional relations for the Family Research Council, told the Washington Times. "Here we have somebody being put in maybe the most important committee position, who has a history of opposing the very values that won the election."
"People are going to watch how he conducts that committee," Henricks said. "We feel like a message was sent, and we are hopeful the message was heard."
Jan LaRue of Concerned Women for America said she is concerned that Specter's statement promising quick action on nominees is nothing new than what he said during the weeks after his controversial comments.
"Specter read from a prepared statement, but said nothing new or different from what he has said since Nov. 3, as he's scrambled to 'clarify' the statement that got him in all the trouble," LaRue said.
Pro-life South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham assured worried pro-life advocates that the Senate Judiciary Committee would strongly support Bush's pro-life judicial picks.
"Time will come when the president sends over a nominee, maybe for the Supreme Court, and our committee will support our president, and we will do everything we can to make sure that nominee is fairly treated," Graham said.
Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family founder and president, said pro-life advocates would be watching Specter and holding him accountable.
"The senator will have ample opportunity in his new position to follow through on his pledged support for the values of the Bush administration, the Senate leadership and the majority of this nation's voters," Dobson said. "As the outcry of the past two weeks demonstrates, neither the Republican Party nor the American people will tolerate obstructionist politics when it comes to the confirmation of judicial nominees."
The GOP Senate is unanimous.
The Pro-Lifer leaders are pacified.
The Specter of abortions past, present and future will head the Senate Judiciary committee.
I wonder what this woman's opinion is:
House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, July 20, 2000:
"My name is Gianna Jessen. I would like to say thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I count it no small thing to speak the truth. I depend solely on the grace of God to do this. I am 23 years old. I was aborted and I did not die. My biological mother was 7 months pregnant when she went to Planned Parenthood in southern California and they advised her to have a late-term saline abortion.
A saline abortion is a solution of salt saline that is injected into the mothers womb. The baby then gulps the solution, it burns the baby inside and out and then the mother is to deliver a dead baby within 24 hours.
This happened to me! I remained in the solution for approximately 18 hours and was delivered ALIVE on April 6, 1977 at 6:00 am in a California abortion clinic. There were young women in the room who had already been given their injections and were waiting to deliver dead babies. When they saw me they experienced the horror of murder. A nurse called an ambulance, while the abortionist was not yet on duty, and had me transferred to the hospital. I weighed a mere two pounds. I was saved by the sheer power of Jesus Christ.
Ladies and gentleman I should be blind, burned.....I should be dead! And yet, I live! Due to a lack of oxygen supply during the abortion I live with cerebral palsy. [...] Adolph Hitler once said: '"The receptive ability of the great masses is only very limited, their understanding is small; on the other hand their forgetfulness is great. This being so, all effective propaganda should be limited to a very few points which in turn, should be used as slogans until the very last man is able to imagine what is meant by such words.'" Today's slogans are: "'a woman's right to choose"' and "freedom of choice," etcetera. Jessen testimony.wpd
Yep, sums it up nicely.
'Wasted away again in Liberalfantasyville...'
This affair has turned out terrifically, better than I had hoped.
The Republican Senate is safe, united, disciplined and ready to rumble.
The Chicago Sun Times (11/11/04) says Senator Arlen Specter wants a private meeting with Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee next week in order to "hash things out," according to Texas Senator John Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court judge, who appears to be emerging as a key player in the fight over whether Specter will be awarded the chairmanship of the powerful Judiciary Committee. It is unclear what Senator Cornyn’s role actually is. He says he wants to find out what Specter intends to do regarding Bush nominees to the federal courts. That sounds a bit like he might vote for him, provided Specter says the right things. Let Senator Cornyn, the other GOP members of the Judiciary Committee, and every Republican Senator (all are members of the Senate Republican Caucus and all will likely have a say in this matter) that Senator Arlen Specter is totally unacceptable for the position of chairman for the following reasons:
Senator Specter "is an avid supporter of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which would subject our military personnel to prosecution for war crimes before hostile international judges, and deny them the protections of our Constitution." In 2002, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed and President Bush signed, the American Servicemembers Protection Act that exempted our military from the threat of the ICC. However, Senator Specter was among the few in the Senate and the only Republican, who voted against this amendment." (Concerned Women for America Press Release, 11/11/04) President Bush opposes the ICC, as do most Americans.
post #5
I notice the MSM is refraining from blaming Karl Rove for this one. That's amusing, because for once he's actually the guy behind this mess.
Rove didn't make Dan Rather peddle forged documents on 60 Minutes, but he did step in to ensure the re-election of Arlen Specter.
And I guarantee you the media will make sure that the MINORITY of the Republican party, THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT, will be heard and made to appear a bigger part than they are. And we're playing right into that. I will not stop saying this. This election was not about abortion.
The Republican Senate is safe, united, disciplined and ready to rumble.
My sentiments EXACTLY. Specter caused his own problem, I thought they handled it very well, the Time Inc's characterization is just MSM drivel, why would we expect any less from them?
I was prepared to call for a Barf Alert for that article, but it was good. I like the part about (us) not taking time off after the election. Maybe we would have if Specter had. His "don't mess with me" statement came the same day as the count became known.
The like you remarked about was, I guess, pointing to people like Pat Buchanan. I don't consider him a Bush conservative. He hates the neo-cons and really only endorsed Bush because Kerry was so inept.
I agree with the statements about getting on with the "ownership society" bills. That is gonna cause a lot of conflict with dems, so we need to get started. But, even though the comics all liked to say that Bush couldn't walk and chew gum, I believe he can and will, once the new congress comes in in Jan.
Specter supporting the "nuclear option" now... that's bad news for the liberals.
I have no clue what I was trying to say in the first sentence of the second paragraph!!!!!!!! I know that I was trying to refer to the paleo-cons, I think?????
I have a bad cold and I think the medicine is making me goofy----Sorry ya'll.
I'm actually proud of the many members on this board for being well organized and quick to act, without getting themselves worked up into a unproductive frothy lather of hysteria.
Bravo!
All the left has right now is there smear and fear strategy. The next four years is going to be about how the religious right is controlling the country. This is going to get loud and mean and I don't think it's a correct assessment about our Party.
They are trying to sterotype Bush's supporters as radical fundamentalist evangelical Christians. I am Christian, but that is about as far as that description goes.
I agree that all of us voted for different reasons, but I think we all would agree that we don't want a RINO trying to help the left get their agenda passed instead of the REpublicans, right?
Yes, to the fever swamp cuckoo birds of the left, AND the fever swamp cuckoo birds of the right - Karl Rove is one part Rasputin, one part the Bogey Man.
Karl Rove is the source of all pain and betrayal in this world Cicero. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
He's got that one exactly right. And they should doubt it for obvious reasons. And conservatives against immigration and also the Bush-pushed nazi New Freedom Initiative also have lost trust. The Specter deal where RepublicRat senators gave the bird to the thousands who called and emailed and support him anyway are only adding fuel to a necessary fire...as in FIRE them next election.
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