Posted on 05/27/2005 3:58:28 PM PDT by wdkeller
Bush, Frist Did Not Dispatch Graham & DeWine to Make a Deal
May 27, 2005
RUSH: I'm going to mention this because -- and I saw the report that I'm going to talk about. It was on FOX News last night at the top of the show on Brit Hume's 6:00 show on Fox, and I saw it, and I said, "Well, okay. The spin has begun," is my reaction to it. But now I've been getting e-mails today from people who believe it. So I decided to check it out. The top of the program last night, Major Garrett reported. Now, this is not a criticism of Major Garrett. Major Garrett reported that he was told by senior Republican sources that Senators DeWine and Graham were dispatched by Senator Frist and the White House to cut the best possible deal on judges. You understand this? Fox reported that Mike DeWine and Lindsey Graham were sent to that meeting chaired by McCain and Warner, by Frist and the White House, to cut the best possible deal on the judges. Now, if that were true, it would mean that Frist admitted he didn't have the votes. "Get your ass over there, make a deal, Lindsey. Get over there, Senator Graham and Senator DeWine and make a deal." So I said, "Okay." This was the first bit of spin that I had been treated to since this all happened, so I decided to check into it, and to the best of my ability to check in and verify this, it seems that this assertion is false. It seems that it is totally false.
That neither Senator Frist nor the White House had anything to do with this meeting, and that they certainly did not dispatch Senators DeWine or Lindsey Graham over to the McCain meeting to cut the best possible deal on judges. Now, if you wonder: "Okay, well, who is this source, who is this senior Republican source?" Well, to find out who the senior Republican source is, it might be helpful to consult the transcript of the report on Fox last night -- and when you look at the transcript of the report, you see that Senator DeWine is portraying himself as having saved the president from a devastating defeat. Now, that's the opposite of what happened and we all know it. Senator DeWine took a win on the filibuster issue and messed it up, and apparently he's trying to rewrite history in order to deflect the heat. Krauthammer has a column today that echoes what many of us have been saying all week that's right on the money. So here's the relevant portion of the transcript of the report on Fox last night. Senator DeWine: "No one knows how to vote on the constitutional option would have come out. We might have won; we might have lost. If we lost, it would have been devastating for the president, devastating for the president when he tried to get a nominee up here for the Supreme Court. Everybody knew where we were coming from, and you know we insisted that this is what the deal had to be. It cleared the way for a lot of the president's agenda other than the judges to move forward, so I think, you know, we got a lot. We really didn't lose anything."
Yeah, of course you didn't lose anything, except the nominations of William Myers and Henry Saad, and maybe five other judges. It could be that only three of these ten will ever see the light of day. So DeWine is portraying himself as having saved the president from a devastating defeat here in the midst of a report that senior a Republican source says that Senators DeWine and Graham were dispatched by Senator Frist and the White House to cut the best possible deal. Now, there's other spin going on as well about all of this, but none of it is this. I mean, every version of spin is its own self-contained individual story with no relationship to any other story or no other link. What does this mean? It means that the signatories to the deal know that they messed up, and they're running for the tall grass now, and they're trying to make the blame shift from themselves to elsewhere, all the way from Frist knew he didn't have the votes and told the White House and the White House told us to get over there and make a deal, all the way to... Basically, at the root of it, I think all the spin is basically about how we were saving the president. We were doing what we could to save this because it was going to do down in a humiliating defeat, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da -- and of course what's wrong with this spin, aside from the fact that it's spin -- and what's caused the spin to take place is the Bolton business.
"Did you see what Lindsey Graham said about the Bolton filibuster? 'Well, this is what's disappointing. The spirit of the deal was that we can do better if we all try.' I don't need to say anymore, folks."
Two things have caused the spinning to start: the Bolton business and the outcry, the outrage of anger and protest emanating from the Republican base. The people that elected these people are furious. They are still furious. So the spin is related to both the Bolton -- because the Bolton episode yesterday, even though I will admit it's got nothing to do with the judge deal, it does have a linkage to the judge deal because one of the reasons for the deal was supposedly to "get the Senate back on track doing the people's business," blah, blah, blah, and it was also said that this is going to clear the way for Bolton. They said this would clear the way for Bolton, and look what happened! Bolton's being filibustered. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's not a filibuster. They're "delaying the vote." Shame on me, folks! I didn't adopt the correct media language. It is a filibuster! Anytime you have a cloture vote, which is what happened yesterday afternoon, anytime you have a cloture vote, you've got a filibuster going on. I don't care what the press calls it. The press will not use the word "filibuster" because the Democrats have some fear, too. The evidence is clear that they are filibustering and obstructing and stopping everything, but this was all predictable.
We know who the Democrats are. A Democrat is a Democrat. A liberal is a liberal. A tiger is a tiger. We knew what they were going to do. We knew that the deal emboldened them, and from what I'm hearing -- and who knows what's factual and what isn't -- from what I'm hearing, the Republicans had a deal, Frist had a deal with Dingy Harry that there would be the 60 votes to get cloture and move on and vote on Bolton. They thought they had so many more than 60 votes they let Specter leave early. Specter, you know, is undergoing chemotherapy for lymph node cancer, something like that, and he left for his Pennsylvania home early before the vote yesterday, and they thought they had plenty of votes, enough to let Specter go early, that his vote wasn't needed. The assurance that Frist had from Dingy Harry himself, and of course Dingy Harry has now screwed Frist twice in one week. Frist has been shafted twice in one week, and you can't blame this all on Frist. I mean you can, maybe you can blame some of it, but let me give you -- I've been talking about LBJ and how he ran the Senate with an iron fist when he was in the Senate and did so at least with his own party when he was president.
RUSH: All right. We have a montage of DeWine, Senator Mike DeWine on the Fox report that I was talking about at the beginning of the show last night. Let me set this up. This is a show on Fox, Brit Hume show top of the hour last night at 6. It's a Major Garrett report that he was told by senior Republican sources that Senators DeWine and Lindsey Graham were dispatched by Senator Frist and the White House to cut the best deal possible on judges, and I said, "Well now, if that's true, that's one of the biggest news breaks and stories in the world," and I dug deep today, and I have assured myself that this is so far from the truth that it doesn't even deserve speculation. So in that case, okay, well, who's the source? Who are the senior Republican sources for this? And we've put together a montage of Senator DeWine in the Major Garrett story yesterday and this is it.
DeWINE: No one knows how the vote on the constitutional option would have come out. We might have won. We might have lost. If we lost, it would have been devastating for the president. Devastating for the president when he tried to get a nominee up here for the Supreme Court. Everybody knew where we were coming from, and, you know, we insisted that this is what the deal had to be. It cleared the way for a lot of the president's agenda other than judges to move forward, so I think we got a lot, and we really didn't lose anything.
RUSH: Now, aside from the substance of this, you hear in this bite that DeWine openly suggests, or should I say references the possibility that the vote would be lost, that Frist didn't have the votes, and they had to go over there and make the best deal possible. So when you couple that with this report from Major Garrett -- and I'm not ripping Major Garrett so please, don't anybody call Fox. I'm trying to figure out who this source is that told him that DeWine and Graham were dispatched by Frist and the White House to cut the best possible deal, because that's huge spin. You know, that's huge, and it sounds like that's what DeWine is saying happened, and he doesn't mention Frist or the White House, but he said they had to go in there and make the best deal we could. Now the Senate is going to move on. The Bolton vote last night is evidence that that's not true, that the president got his agenda going. I don't know what these guys are thinking. Are the Democrats just going to announce, "oh, wow, okay, let's go pass Social Security, Mr. President"? I clearly do not understand where these guys are coming from, but there's no party discipline. That's for sure.
RUSH: Laura Lynn in Cincinnati, nice to have you on the program. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Appreciate you taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: You know, another consequence of DeWine's betrayal here with the filibuster matter is the effect that it's had on his son's campaign. His son is running here in the second Congressional district trying to fill the very big shoes left open by Rob Portman, and I'll tell you, the dialogue around our community at least is, you know, he uses the name, he uses dad's money, he's got the political machine behind him that pushed him to the forefront, and, you know, it just leads us to believe that we're going to get the same nonsense in the House as we have in the Senate, and I think it's really hurt his campaign here.
RUSH: I've seen speculation that that might be the case. Your phone call kind of adds impetus to the notion that it could. We'll just have to wait and see. This is something that's not going to be known until election day, but clearly it's something that Senator DeWine will hear himself, and will give thought to. But look, it's too late. You know, look, my friends, I hate to sound like a broken record on this. They make the deal when? On Monday. On Monday night they're all praising themselves as independent mavericks, right? They're doing the best thing for the country. They saved the country. They "saved the republic." They saved the Senate, and now we can get back to doing business in the Senate. "Kids are dying in Iraq." Okay. The deal falls apart. Now, make no mistake it's fallen apart. This comity and the goodwill that was supposed to come out of this meeting was officially slam-dunked yesterday in a Bolton filibuster. Now, isn't it interesting that all of these participants -- and let's just stick with the Republican side on this, because it wouldn't have happened without them, all right? All the Republican participants said, "We acted independently. We did what is best for our country. We're not really moderates. We're not this, we're not that. We just did what's best for the country. We saved the Senate! Comity, staid tradition in the Senate. Protecting the rights of the minority. We need to make sure that we can get back to doing the nation's business. Kids are dying in Iraq. We got to go back and work on Social Security."
Okay. Then the deal falls apart, and they're all blaming everybody else for the deal. "Well, the White House set us up. The White House and Frist, they knew they didn't have the votes. We had to go up there; we had to try to save the day." Isn't it interesting when the deal first gets announced... Somebody in the press or in one of the blogs somewhere had a great characterization of all these Republicans not even able to go to sleep Monday night in anticipation of their profiles in the Washington Post style section on Tuesday. So they get up like it's Christmas morning, looking for their great profiles to show how independent they are, then the deal goes south and now it's everybody else's fault, and some are saying, "You know, we're surprised. We're saddened. We're saddened and surprised that this happened." Some of them are saying that, talking about the breakdown here of civility in the Bolton circumstance.
When we target people to fade away within the Republican Party, assumedly we won't actually consult the POTUS about that fact beforehand, as he would need to publicly preserve the illusion of his very large tent that admits even IDIOTS like these to pass through...
When LBJ was herding cats, he NEVER made it public, what he was doing; not ever. The same was true for Tip O'Neil.
One problem here, is that some people ( no, not you ) think that a president and/or a Majority Leader, should/would do what they think should be done, but which NEVER is! Some hear howled and are still howling about President Bush NOT going after the Clintons, once he was president. And now, they expect Frist and the president to publicly condemn Graham and De Wine, when this just is NOT what they should or would do.
Yes, politics IS a game, but it isn't one played by third graders on a school yard.
I don't agree with Rush on this one, but neither would I expect him to give the Dems red meat. He's pretty much forced to defend the GOP.
What's interesting though is that on Wednesday, before FNC reported this DeWine/Graham deal, Rush himself brought up the possibility that Bush was responsible in a conversation with a caller who was accusing Frist of engineering the deal (the audio's on his 24/7 site).
I didn't see the FNC report, but I read on one of the blogs this morning that the reason given to Graham and DeWine to join the McCain gang was that the WH was worried that Specter would jump ship and not support the nuclear option. Lots of irony here, since the WH supported Specter's chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee.
The whole thing is clear as mud, but I refuse to believe these seven simpletons were solely responsible for this debacle.
I guess the thinking is that, with only a few weeks left until the summer break, it will all blow over by next fall, and they can get to the really important stuff -- like more entitlement/pork barrel spending.
After all, a few conservative judges don't mean squat when you figure you can buy all the votes you need.
Okay, I'll make the translation as simple as possible.
Both Sean Hannity and Cunningham were saying that De Wine is a colossal moron,who's act was a breach of trust, he is an unfaithful and treacherous backstabber, who went completely against the GOP, Frist, and the president.
Garrett is a great reporter. But, reporters have to get information from sources, from people they call or see.
Sometimes that info is wrong, and I believe it would be in this case.
If the report is true, it would be the height of betrayel and Frist should be removed from office. But, it seems more likely for me that Clinton will be arrested tomorrow than that Frist abandoned his principles and dispatched senators for the deal negoation.
In order to get and stay as the chairman of the Judiciary committee, W got Arlen to agree to be "good", or else he would be kneecapped and given a cement overcoat.He's old, very ill, and he WANTS this job! He is thinking about his legacy.
There is NO possible way that the president sent Graham and De Wine to be his personal spies and helpers, unless he is as stupid as our enemies claim he is.
"Thanks Brett. I've posted this phrase a dozen times, with no takers, "Can anyone explain why we don't make them ACTUALLY filibuster?" 7th grade civics: Make them keep talking, when they can't go any more, they yield the floor. The chair calls for a vote. No rule changes required. Nothing's getting done anyway, WTF?"
I'll take you up...
Another poster (speekinout) had a similar question:
"That's what a filibuster WAS. But now, a Senator only has to declare a filibuster. He or she doesn't need to speak on the floor."
"The part that confuses me most is that they used to be able to call for a vote at any time, and now it seems that they won't call a vote except in regular session."
The Senate Rule XXII changes made in 1975 and 1982 by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA) the rules did change from the all-nighters on the US Senate floor. The rule changes also prevented the 'snap' votes on cloture since NOW it takes three-fifths of all elected Senators (60 votes), not three-fifths of all Senators present and voting... Since it does take 60 votes for cloture unless the whips can say they have the 60 votes (or close to it) they just set the actual filibust aside and go on to other Senate business. Read all about it below, as some people seem to believe that we are still operating by the 1917-1949 or 1959-1975 filibuster cloture Rule XXII. Not so...
From an older post:
Originally posted by jwpjr:
"Good question! I say let's find out. After all, there hasn't really been filibuster in a long time. So far they have gotten their way by simply threatening to filibuster, not by actually having to hold the floor for days on end. I termed the technique the 'fili-bluster', it's all bark and no bite. I say let 'em have their filibuster, but make darned sure it's something akin to the marathon in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"! We don't need no stinkin' rule changes, just make them play by the current rules. They'll get tired and go home soon enough. The problem is though that it requires some real effort by the Republicans and after a couple of hundred years Senate rules passed with the purpose of avoiding the heavy lifting in law making have made the Senate and its schedule/workload a laugh."
This is about the Senate Rule XXII change strategy, not just the so-called 'Nuclear Option':
The marathon filibuster won't work with today's US Senate cloture rules. Read on and see why... First some history. If the US Senate Republican majority cannot muster the 51 votes necessary to adopt a modified Rule XXII at the beginning of the 109th Session of Congress, then when shall it happen? Once the previous Rule XXII is adopted by the 109th Senate, it will take 67 votes to modify said 60 votes cloture rule during the 109th, forcing the alternative 'Nuclear Option' with Vice-President Cheney ruling from the chair... Remember that the cutting off any debate - 'cloture' has only been on the Senate books since the 65th Congress in 1917. Look at the historical table below and you will see in the grey-color highlights that shows that only the seven Senates of the 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 89th, 94th and 95th Congresses have had a single party majority with enough votes to force 'cloture' on a filibuster, subject to the cloture rules of the day. All of those seven Senates were controlled by the Democrats. The Senate Republicans have never had a filibuster-proof majority in party history. A 'filibuster-proof' majority for any political party is quite rare...
Please note that in 1975 the Democrats did not have the 67 votes required to shut-off filibusters by Republicans who were objecting to the proposed 'cloture' rule change from 67 votes to 60 votes. Under the leadership of Senator Robert Byrd(D-WVa) this Senate Rule XXII change was accomplished by simple majority vote. Does that situation sound familiar? Some contend that the US Senate is a 'continuing' body (never goes out of session) and hence is bound the rules adopted by previous Senates. Others such as Vice-Presidents Nixon and Humphrey have stated in their capacity as President of the Senate that current Senates may not be bound by the rules adopted by previous (long past) Senates...
Majority Party |
Number of Senators |
required for Cloture |
|||||||
Note: Grey shading indicates party has sufficient votes for cloture.
Note: All filibuster rule changes have always happpened when Democrats control the Senate.
Source: US Senate: Party Division in the Senate, 1789-Present.
Source: Congressional Research Service: RS20801 "Cloture Attempts on Nominations". December 11, 2002.
Source: Congressional Research Service: RL30360 "Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate". March 28, 2003.
Source: When the Majority Party Won't Listen: The use of the Senate Filibuster by the Minority Party by Thorson and Nitzschke - University of Minnesota at Morris.
The problem with operating 'status quo' is that position directly supports the contention that the Senate is a 'continuing body' and hence is bound the the established rules of a previous Senate. If Frist believes as he stated in his speech that he reserves the right to change Rule XXII at a later date, then that means that currently the Senate is NOT operating under any "Rules" but those imposed by simple majority (51) votes. He cannot have it both ways: the previous 'Rules' are still in force with no adoption by the Senate of the 109th Congress, or there are no 'Rules' until the current Senate adopts what the Rules committee puts forth... I don't see how Majority Leader Frist can combine both positions.
Many angry Republicans wish that the Rule XXII would go back to the filibuster requirement of 'those Senators voting and present' if they re-adopt the 'three-fifths' cloture rule. Many on Free Republic complain about the ease of filibusters for the Democrats - the reason that it is easy is because the (assumed) current Rule XXII simply requires three-fifths of all elected Senators (60 votes) for cloture.
To bring back the old-fashioned "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" filibusters the Senate would have to have the same cloture rules in force as in the 1917-1949 and 1959-1975 periods which in today's rules would read: 'three-fifths of Senators voting and present'. The fact that the Rule XXII states it is simply 'three-fifths of all elected Senators' makes all the difference in the world. Also the cloture Rule XXII would have to change to eliminate the need to propose a cloture vote two legislative days in advance of one being held, since if through some miracle the Republicans held a late night cloture majority, it would be wasted if they had to schedule the cloture vote for two days hence, when the number of Democrats present on the floor of the Senate would again be at the level necessary to sustain their filibuster. The old cloture rules of 'those Senators voting and present' made the snap cloture vote possible.
Currently a quorum is required while a filibuster is being conducted (51 members present) that means the the Republicans would have to have at least 51 of their 55 members on the floor in addition to the one filibustering Democrat Senator. The other Democrats could be home asleep in their beds under the current rules since it takes 60 votes (three-fifths of all elected Senators) for cloture. If the Senate was operating under the older-style cloture (with today's three-fifths instead of the older two-thirds) rule of 'three-fifths of Senators voting and present' then and only then the Democrats would have to have a minimum of 35 Senators present to ensure that the presence of 51 Republican Senators would not allow the 'three-fifths of Senators voting and present' to achieve a successful cloture vote. The reason that the Republicans must have at least 51 members (out of their current 55) present on the floor is that if they only had 50 members present, under the current rules once the single lone filibustering Democrat got tired he could simply walk off the floor of the Senate and there would not be a quorum necessary to conduct any Senate business. If the Senate was operating under the older filibuster rules (voting and present) then the filibustering Senator would walk out of the Senate chambers with the other 34 Democrats and there would be no quorum (51 members) present and hence no Senate business may take place.
Bottom line: Under current Senate filibuster rules, the Republicans must have 51 (of their 55) members present in the Senate chamber at all times, while the Democrats could have just ONE filibustering Senator present. Contrast this to the "old-style" cloture rule requirements where the Democrats would have to maintain a substantial 35 member presence on the Senate floor, with at least two Democrats for every three Republican present on the floor, plus one to prevent a 'snap' cloture vote by the Republicans. At least the Democrats could get tired, cranky and irritable too...
Hope this helps,
dvwjr
I know the word "perfidy" -- I was unsure of the "bones" idiom.
"When it's your personal Senator making an ass out of himself, time stands still. You recall vividly the very moment you considered putting your house up for sale and movinge to Texas."
Unfortunately, I just did the opposite move :( Trust me, I've been questioning this move all freakin' week!
Wow, thanks. Now I get it, and admit that 7th grade was well before 1975.
They were angry with De Wine, and they were not being subtle about it.
That puts it in a nutshell.
And what was Rush Limbaugh's "named source"?
What he literally said, in backing up his hypothetical spin, was:
"It seems to me..." and
"I have assured myself..."
Oh, yeah, that's some hard reporting there.
It was also pretty telling that in spinning the story his way he repeatedly made reference to the original story as being "just spin". Every liar does this, accusing the other guy of doing what he himself is doing. It was a perfectly transparent attempt (thank God), as demonstrated by the posts on this thread.
Here's my only remaining question:
Why would Dick Cheney not want to be the deciding vote?
Here's what the president did:
1. He and Frist stepped aside and let the Dems back-room an unenforceable deal with McCain and the other 6 Rep dwarfs. A deal not worth the paper it is written on.
2. W and Frist then watched the back-room dealers and the Dems announce to the world, as Sheets Bryd did, the Republic, the Senate and all that is democratic has been saved for future generations to come and that the Senate would now be able to get on with the peoples business. They go further and say the Filibuster lives but will only be invoked under extreme circumstances which remain undefined, but the nuclear option died and cannot be brought up again by this Congress. By the way Mr. President to top it all off we rewrote the Constitution in our little meeting and you Mr. President must now submit future appointees for anything to the 14 morons for our approval prior to being sent to any congressional committee.
3. Frist and W hit the Senate with a Bolten of Lightening by simply scheduling the Bolten appointment for Senate debate less than 48 hours after the Republic is saved by the Senate. The extreme circumstance not previously defined is now defined as 2 pieces of paper protected by Executive Privilege that the dems insist are the linchpin to Bolten approval or non-approval, the same Bolten approved by the Senate 4 previous times for other positions.
4. Basically W and Frist let the Dem Senators run in a gigantic circle for a couple of weeks. We now stand exactly where we were prior to the agreement. When the Senate reconvenes Frist will have no choice but to ask for a vote on changing the Senate rules and this time no 1 will listen to any arguments to not change the rules to a simple majority vote.
It was brilliant. The Dems were allowed to destroy their own arguments for not changing the rules in less than 48 hours by merely letting Dems be Dems.
I, on the other hand, choose to believe Rush's unnamed sources. Rush's conservative credentials and track record are impeccable.
Keeping them talking will not end a filibuster under the current rules. Since the requirement to end it is now 3/5 of the members (a firm number of 60) is much harder to achieve than the old number of 2/3 of those present (back when Ol Strom was filibustering). In the old days you could talk them to death, wear them down and call for a vote when you might get the number equal to 2/3 present.
Today, as long as 41 won't switch their vote, they can hold out forever regardless of how much you talk.
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