Distrust of McCain Lingers Over ’05 Deal on Judges

[Def Conservative]

WASHINGTON — Back in 2005, Senator John McCain of Arizona and fellow members of the so-called Gang of 14 were hailed as heroes in some quarters when they fashioned an unusual pact that averted a Senate vote on banning filibusters against judicial nominees.

Now Mr. McCain’s central role in that effort, which cleared the way for confirmation of some conservative jurists, is cited as one reason for lingering distrust of him among many conservatives. The power to appoint federal judges is seen as one of the most crucial presidential roles by many on the right, and some continue to believe the agreement undermined the Republican leadership at the precise moment the party was about to eliminate the ability to use procedural tactics to block judges.

James C. Dobson, an influential conservative leader, noted Mr. McCain’s role in the bipartisan Gang of 14 in his announcement that he could not support the lawmaker as the Republican nominee under any circumstances. Other conservatives still resent it as well.

“When people hear he was part of the Gang of 14, it leaves a bad taste in their mouths,” said Phil Burress, president of the Citizens for Community Values, based in Ohio.

Even some colleagues now backing Mr. McCain consider the judicial agreement a sore subject. “We had the votes to put both parties on the spot that whoever is president, Republican or Democrat, has a right to appoint and we have the right to vote up or down,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a former Judiciary Committee chairman.

[Def Conservative]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/us/politics/25judges.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

NYT is always so late to the table on how conservatives think.

[hiredhand]

Distrust of McCain Lingers Over ’05 Deal on Judges him being a pandering leftist.

[Def Conservative]

LOL, that’s about right!

[hiredhand]

Yeah. :-)

[IMissPresidentReagan]

“When people hear he was part of the Gang of 14, it leaves a bad taste in their mouths,” said Phil Burress, president of the Citizens for Community Values, based in Ohio

As does McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, his tendency to be condescending towards conservatives (i.e. telling them to calm down), and I could go on and on. Conservatives are having a hard time locating enough Listerine to rinse out the McCain aftertaste the Republican Party has left us with.

[org.whodat]

Distrust of McCain

Distrust, what a mild word, I think it is more that we know he is a backstabbing little old man. Sort of beyond the loon category.

[JackRyanCIA]

McLame is a pig.

[DJtex]

So McCain reaches across the aisle to get things done. Too much gridlock is M.A..D.

[TomGuy]

But he has an R after his name, so he must be alright.

So what if he wanted to jump ship and join the Dems in 2000.

So what if he wanted to jump ship and be Kerry's VP nominee.

So what if his Campaign Finance Reform was a direct assault on the First Amendment.

So what if his McCain-Kennedy was little more than amnesty for 12-60 million illegals.

So what if he didn't like Alito because Alito wore conservatism on his shirt sleeve.

McCain has an R after his name, so he must be alright.

[/s]

[Sybeck1]

Gang of 14 is I think Bill Frist never ran in 2008. McCAin kneecapped him.

[Our man in washington]

I’m no huge McCain fan, but that compromise actually worked. We got a bunch of judges seated, and Roberts and Alito both got on the bench.

So the parties compromised. It’s the nature of the Federal government. This is one thing McCain did right.

Now if you want to get me ticked at McCain, bring up McCain-Feingold.

[Def Conservative]

Um...you are forgetting that the Republicans would’ve had the votes to get the up or down vote started if it wasn’t for McCain’s back room deal. McCain stabbed conservatives in the back. It’s great we got two good guys on the Supreme Court, but we also missed out on ALOT of great judges.

Orrin Hatch said the votes were there, and especially would’ve been there if Juan McCain would’ve put conservatism over compromise for the media’s sake, but he didn’t.

[Def Conservative]

Yeah, that seems to be the thinking nowadays. The R behind Juan McCain’s means we must vote for him.

[TinaJeannes]

what are you whining about?judges were appointed
gang of 14 sounds like a good title for a movie *L*

[TomGuy]

A blast from the past. Lieberman was the only gang member to miss this meeting, according to another source, because it was held on a Jewish holiday.

October 6, 2005

Gang of 14 Boosts Miers' Nomination

The Gang of 14’s Democratic and Republican senators met yesterday and gave "preliminary approval" to Harriet Miers' nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court:

Emerging from a meeting at the offices of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said, “This nomination didn’t set off any alarm bells with any of us.”

According to The Hill, this "provisional endorsement" could be huge. Absent the revelation of some damning evidence during confirmation hearings Miers is unlikely to be filibustered, and a party-line vote would mean confirmation.

[Def Conservative]

So McCain was trying to push the Miers nomination in October, even after conservative complaints? Great! And we’re supposed to trust this guy with the courts.

[soxfan]

Had it not been for the Gang of 14, the GOP Senate Majority Leader would have changed the rules to allow a simple majority vote for the cloture of a filibuster of judicial nominees.

Assuming that Dingee Harry would not have had a change of heart, the current GOP Senate Minority would now be powerless to filibuster, as a simple majority - vice 60 Senators - could cut off debate.

And then in 2009, President Barack Obama can freely submit his left-wing SCOTUS nominees to a filibuster-proof Senate for confirmation.

[Lancey Howard]

I can hardly believe there are still alleged "conservatives" who haven't grasped the GOP political masterpiece that was the "Gang of Fourteen". Here is an edited cut-'n-paste from an old thread:

______________________________________________________

The "Gang of Fourteen" deal was a stroke of pure genius. Curiously, there are still some alleged conservatives who don’t get it, even though John Roberts, Sam Alito, JANICE ROGERS BROWN!, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor were all confirmed with barely a squeak from the rats, and even after it was explained that regardless of "the deal" Frist STILL had his finger hovering over “the nuclear button” and could "push it" at any time.

Thanks to the “extraordinary circumstances” language of “the deal”, the rats were completely boxed in, and our nervous “blue state” GOP Senators had the cover they needed to vote nuclear if and when the time came. In other words, the nuclear option became more likely to succeed thanks to "the deal".

(It still boggles my mind that the Democrats walked right into the trap. I can hardly stop smiling! By the way, even the idiots over at DUh knew they'd been had - - they went bonkers.)

The scheme was needed in the first place because Frist was by no means certain that he had the fifty votes needed to “go nuclear” AND he figured that doing the “deal” was simply a superior strategy, especially from a "PR" point of view - - with “the deal”, the liberal press couldn’t accuse the Republicans of “running roughshod over the Constitution”, being “bullies”, doing “incalculable damage to the Constitution”, and “destroying Senate tradition”, etc., etc. It was the potential for this kind of press that made some “blue state” Republican Senators very nervous about voting to "go nuclear". Thanks to "the deal", however, they got themselves some COVER!

See, with "the deal" in place, if the rats filibustered virtually ANYBODY (especially a Supreme Court nominee) then the Republicans could throw up their hands and claim that the Democrats went back on their word. “We are left with no choice in the face of broken promises by the Democrats but to change the filibuster rules at this time.”

I happen to believe that “the deal” was a masterpiece of political ingenuity that could only have been dreamed up by the ghost of Lee Atwater over breakfast with Karl Rove.

(By the way, if Frist had attempted to exercise the "nuclear option" and failed, the rats would have completely controlled the judicial nomination process and in all likelihood most or all of the aforementioned justices would have been defeated. The short-sightedness of in-your-face "conservatives" who would have preferred to stand by "principle" and take that chance is perplexing.)

SUMMARY:
As a result of “the deal”, the rats cannot sustain a filibuster because seven of them have promised not to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee except under “extrordinary circumstances”. (Simply being a conservative does not meet the criteria of “extrordinary circumstances”.) IF five of the seven Democrats in the “Gang of Fourteen” were forced by leadership to break their promise and support a filibuster, then the GOP could unabashedly (thanks to the cover provided by “the deal”) exercise their “nuclear” option.

The "Gang of Fourteen" gambit was one of the most brilliant political strategies I ever saw. Once again:

John Roberts, Sam Alito, JANICE ROGERS BROWN!, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor.... were ALL confirmed with barely a whimper from the rats.

Results COUNT.

(Disclaimer: I am as distressed as anybody on this site by McCain's likely nomination, but the "Gang of Fourteen" is not the issue to nail him for.)

[Condor51]

Distrust of McCain Lingers Over...

• McCain-Feingold
  
• McCain-Lieberman
  
• McCain-Kennedy
  
• His Terrorist Bill of Rights
  
• His persistent attack on the 2nd Amendment over the non existent 'Gun Show Loophole'. It would end firearm sales between private citizens - anywhere, not only at Gun Shows.
• How he pondered jumping the Aisle in 2000. But Jeffords beat him to it. Crazy John wanted to be first, that's the only reason he didn't become a Democrat.
  
• Contacting his 'good friend' Kerry as to being his running mate in 2004.
  
• How he and his 'good friend' John Kerry screwed over families of MIAs and POWs in that BS Committee. They blatantly covered up information of LIVE POWs still held by the commies. Shortly after that committee ended (2 weeks IIRC), Kerry's BIL signed a multi million dollar sweet heart deal with the Vietnam Commies.
  
• Backstabbing fellow Republicans, especially Conservatives.
  
• His ACU rating of 68 in 2001.
  
• His ACU rating of 65 in 2006.
  
• Fighting Dubya at every turn for the past eight years (see above ACU ratings)

• Oh yeah, and the Gang of 14

So 'distrust' is putting it mildly.
Predicting his actions is like trying to guess what a Psychotic Scorpion will do next. (With McCain, nuking Wyoming for spite comes to mind)

And the fact is, McCain has ALWAYS been a 1st Class spoiled, petulant, ahole, going all the way back to Annapolis (prolly to Kindergarten). If daddy and granddad weren't Admirals he would have been booted out on his butt in the second week.

[Def Conservative]

And there were many GREAT judges who were sacrificed by the Gang of 14 deal. This did not have to happen...we could’ve had an up or down vote.

Why are the Republicans the only ones who love to sacrifice when they are in charge?

[Condor51]

*** John Roberts, Sam Alito, JANICE ROGERS BROWN!, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor.... were ALL confirmed with barely a whimper from the rats.

Ex squeeze me, barely a whimper from the rats??? At the time of the Gang of 14 the Republicans 'controlled' the senate 55 - 44 & 1 independent, Jeffords.

• Owens was confirmed 55 - 43
• JRB was confirmed 56 - 43
• Pryor was confirmed 53 - 45

Those are party line votes. That's hardly 'without a whimper. You'll also note with Pryor 2 "R's" jumped ship.

As to Alito, he was finally confirmed 72-24 but .."A number of Democratic senators attempted a filibuster" And "Several members of the Gang of 14 then voted against confirming Alito, including Republican Lincoln Chafee.

And with Roberts and Alito I watched the senate 'floor debates' for both before cloture. They were called 'everything but a white man' (old saying) by the RATS. The attacks on them by Durbin, Reed, Chuck the Schmuck, and that asshat Corzine were reprehensible, beneath contempt. That again is hardly 'barely a whimper'.

And the Gang of 14 left some of Dubya's nominees hung out to dry, never to be heard from again. William Meyers and Larry Saad got the dagger in the back from McCain and his gang. And other nominees withdrew their names.

So sorry, don't agree that the Gang of 14 was a brilliant strategy. McCain came up with it just to screw over Bush and show him who was boss.

[Just mythoughts]

THERE are as result of lord McCain becoming a gangster, 200 yes 200 vacancies that the protectionists of the Senate refuse to vote up or down. You just wait for lord McCain to sit atop the heap and have that unholy body the Senate poke fingers in his eyes.

[Grunthor]

“Distrust of McCain Lingers Over ’05 Deal on Judges”

Distrust? Try unadulterated and palpable hatred.

[Grunthor]

“So McCain reaches across the aisle to get things done.”

Only if it is against the interests of conservatives.

[Grunthor]

Had it not been for the Gang of 14, the GOP Senate Majority Leader would have changed the rules to allow a simple majority vote for the cloture of a filibuster of judicial nominees.

Assuming that Dingee Harry would not have had a change of heart, the current GOP Senate Minority would now be powerless to filibuster, as a simple majority - vice 60 Senators - could cut off debate.

---

No gang of 14, and it is quite likely that happy conservatives show up to vote in ‘06 and the Repubes at least hold the congress if not pick up a few seats.

[Lancey Howard]

Those are party line votes. That's hardly 'without a whimper. You'll also note with Pryor 2 "R's" jumped ship.

Yep, "barely a whimper". So what if the rats voted party line? - - They had their "base" of goofballs to worry about and nobody expected anything different. It was the threat of filibusters that mattered, and that threat was erased thanks to the "Gang of Fourteen" deal. THAT's what counts.

As to Alito, he was finally confirmed 72-24 but....

"But"?? Who cares about "but"? 72 - 24...!

A number of Democratic senators attempted a filibuster" And "Several members of the Gang of 14 then voted against confirming Alito, including Republican Lincoln Chafee.

"Attempted" a filibuster. There was no chance of a filibuster succeeding thanks to "the deal", and indeed there was no successful filibuster. A little posturing for the goofball base was the extent of it, but that is always to be expected. No big deal.

(And Lincoln Chafee?? Please....)

Sure, a couple of good nominees fell by the wayside, but the big picture was overwhelmingly successful for Bush, the Republicans, and the nation. As a bonus, the Republicans, now in the minority, remain in a position to filibuster radical rat nominees.

[Will88]

“And then in 2009, President Barack Obama can freely submit his left-wing SCOTUS nominees to a filibuster-proof Senate for confirmation.”

And, until Senate Republicans grow a pair, they’d receive the same 90+ vote confirmation that Ruth Bader Ginsburg received, with some Republicans bragging about how well they worked with Slick Willie (or Obama in the future) to get a nominee confirmed.

Republicans need to learn to Bork and filibuster unacceptable candidates. That would have more long term benefit than having the RINO McCain in the White House “reaching across the isle” to pass all sorts of liberal legislation with Dems. If they can’t learn that, they need to be voted out of office.

[soxfan]

Even if they grew ‘em they size of hoss buns, it wouldn’t have done them any good if it would take a majority to “Bork and filibuster” unacceptable candidates.

The GOP has already been voted out of office.

Now the key question is, do they ever want to be relevant again? More specifically, exactly what value is “principle” without “relevance”?

When the Democrats are in control of the Government, they will seek neither the advice nor any principles of the minority party. It will not be the prerogative of the GOP to propose and submit legislation: the role of the GOP will be to show up and vote on Democrat legislation.

Tha’s the way it works. You can hold your breath and stomp your feet all you want: the country is fully capable of being governed without the meaningful input and participation of the Republican Party.

You and I might not like the results, but we will pay the Taxman when he/she cometh exactly as if it were from the GOP government.

Winning is everything. Losers suck.

[Will88]

“Even if they grew ‘em they size of hoss buns, it wouldn’t have done them any good if it would take a majority to “Bork and filibuster” unacceptable candidates.”

No, if they have 40 votes in the Senate, they can filibuster judicial nominees. The Dems. were doing it while the Republicans had a majority of 57 or so. That’s what the Gang of 14 was about, preventing the Republicans from changing the Senate rules to prohibit the use of the filibuster against judicial nominees.

40 votes can tie up most anything in the Senate if the 40 have the nerve to use that power. The Dems. sure do most of the time. The Republicans need to learn.

[soxfan]

“No, if they have 40 votes in the Senate, they can filibuster judicial nominees. The Dems. were doing it while the Republicans had a majority of 57 or so.”

Response: I understand that 40 votes will allow a filibuster. That would NOT have been the case, however, had Senate Majority Leader Frist had his way. He wanted to reduce the requirement for cloture to a simple majority vote, not 60 votes. The Gang of 14 prevented that from happening and paved the way for the floor vote and subsequent confirmation of Justices Alito and Roberts.

---

“That’s what the Gang of 14 was about, preventing the Republicans from changing the Senate rules to prohibit the use of the filibuster against judicial nominees.”

Response: And had the Republicans not been prevented from doing that, the rules would now require only a majority vote to squash a filibuster.

There would be no “Borking”, there would be no filibuster. The GOP would be given a forenoon to vent, and there would be an up and down vote. Which at worst, would carry on party lines.

I am sorry conservatism is dead. I didn’t kill it. I will tell you what DID kill it, however: Conservative “leaders” who wrapped themselves in phony moral superiority to cover their own disgraceful personal, hypocritical conduct and habits. Their reprehensible conduct has tarnished the validity of conservative principles.

In the meantime, if Senator McCain is unsuccessful in his candidacy for President, we are looking at a governing triumverate of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. That is not my opinion: that is a fact.

Principles are only meaningful to the extent they are relevant: relevance is meaningful to the extent that there are consequences to the alternative.

Those who believe we can sit this one out on principle are in fact the unprincipled ones. And I submit that based on this reasoning: They do not hold their principles to be so important that the alternative consequences are intolerable. Instead, they are willing to risk: That it really won’t matter if the country is run into the ground for four years until we get it back.

That is more than unprincipled, it is foolish.

[Will88]

What you fail to ever mention is that the Dems. used the filibuster to defeat judicial nominees while the Republicans had a majority in the Senate. The Republicans never did, and have generally followed the notion that a president should be able to pick the judges they wish. Thus we saw the Republicans join in to give Ruth Bader Ginsburg 90+ votes.

The Gang of 14 gained nothing, and with a change in the Senate rules we’d not now have 15 appeals court judges the Dems. have refused to confirm since pre-2006 elections, and have no intention of confirming now that they have the majority. Plus, scores of district judges are in the same situation.

So, it was a brilliant strategy to preserve a filibuster only the Dems. have used while the Republicans had the majority. Will the Republicans even use it now? The Republicans are always mouthing about comity and traditions of the Senate, while the Dems. use any trick they can including non-traditional filibusters of judicial nominees, and clay pigeon tactics, and using one Senator coming in during recesses to prevent Bush from using any more recess appointments.

The Gang of 14 gained nothing, and cost Republicans I think almost 200 judicial nominees, including the 15 or so appeals court nominees.

The Dems. have won big time on judicial nominees while Bush was president, even while Republicans had up to 57 Senators.

And Bush and Rove have about destroyed the Republican majorities and power others (not them) built up over years and decades.

The party will be far better off fighting a Dem. president beginning in 2009, then concentrating on winning back the House and eventually the Senate in 2010 and 2012. McCain is a disaster waiting to happen for Republicans.

We don’t need ruminations about priciples. We need a strategy to stop the trashing of the party (built up by others) by such as Bush and McCain and other pseudo conservatives.

The conservative movement is not dead. McCain is the 35% nominee, and only managed that by a strange and destructive interaction of factors: Thompson’s dilly dallying and poor organization, Huckabee’s unexpected rise to the top tier of candidates (winning many evangelicals), and enough anti-Mormanism to hurt Romney, who was never well known in most of the nation due to the ludicrous amount of time all spend in Iowa and NH.

The conservative voters were split among three and more candidates, so we have the 35% John McCain.

[Republic of Texas]

Exactly. McCain snatched a tie from the jaws of victory. He seems to be good at that. Not a reason to support him as President.

[dennisw]

For the people who say John McCain & Gang of 14 preserved the Senate filibuster for judges and now we Republicans will need it if there is a president Obama or Hillary ......

Republicans will never use it because the mass media will be all over them. They will back off

[dennisw]

This “Gang of 14” is when it hit me what a POS backstabber McVain was. He of the lunatic ego. Now I have to vote for this weasel to keep a Muzzie out of the White House

[soxfan]

The conservative voters were split among three or more candidates, because those candidates are not conservative. There are no conservatives who can get elected dog-catcher in 2008, else they would have.

The fact that essentially 100% - not 35% - of the vote was split among likes of Huckabee, Romney, Guiliani, and McCain only bolsters that argument.

Conservatism is dead. It died not because of its message, but because of its messengers.

Doesn’t matter. Dead is dead.

It is not the time to surrender to the enemy in 2008 as you suggest. That would be the fundamentally unprincipled approach, IMO: it would assume - based on an incredible naivete - that the consequences of such a retreat are tolerable, that it doesn’t really matter if Democrats can run roughshod for at least two if not more years.

I beg to disagree, strenuously, with that approach. We have not been attacked on our soil since 9/11/01. That is not by accident, IMO.

[soxfan]

For the sake of argument, I am even willing to stipulate all the evil-doing blame assigned to Senator McCain as being factually correct. That’s right, you can shake your fist at him all you like with 100% certainty:

That still doesn’t change the reality that nothing to the Right of John McCain is electable to national office in 2008.

You wanna blame someone? Forget McCain, he is what he is.

You can start with President Bush, who even if he holds deeply conservative principles is intellectually incapable of articulating them. Who wears his lack of nuance as a badge of honor. Wake up, people: the game is chess, and he’s playing checkers.

You can blame Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the rest of the Five-Sided Foxhole neo-cons who believe they invented wisdom and saw any opposing viewpoint as disloyalty, no matter how constructively presented.

You can blame toe-tappers without a shred of decency or humility like Larry Craig.

Or the personal conduct and hypocrisy of Randy Cunningham, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett, etc.

Just be glad we’re dealing with Democrats as rivals, who are too stupid to understand that had they played their cards right, could have taken credit for the turn of events in Iraq.

[CPT Clay]

Lancey, thanks.

I never thought of it that way.

Immigration is why I don’t like him.

[TigersEye]

But he's our backstabber. /s

[Will88]

Your #36 is mostly nonsense so I won’t bother to reply.

But here’s something from your #37 I agree with completely:

“You can start with President Bush, who even if he holds deeply conservative principles is intellectually incapable of articulating them. Who wears his lack of nuance as a badge of honor. Wake up, people: the game is chess, and he’s playing checkers.”

Completely true, and that has weakened the party greatly because he can’t persuasively present his case, and the more he tries, the worse it gets.

The Trojan Horse was let into the conservative castle when Reagan selected GHWB as VP. The two Bushes have done more harm to the conservative movement, and the Republican party than any opponents ever could have. Each entered the White House in a strong position (a position earned by others) that become stronger, then each managed to squander the strength and Republican power almost totally before the end of their presidencies. (And neither selected a VP who’d logically become a strong presidential contender. Thought only of themselves.)

After the party’s being in the about the strongest position since WWII, or maybe ever, in 2004, W and Rove have managed to trash everything in three years and put the party in the weakest position of most of our lifetimes.

Both Bushes were incapable of articulating their positions, GHWB memorably during the 1992 election where he never effectively responded to Clinton/Gore’s ridiculous charges of what terrible shape the nation was in.

The Bushes were never anything but Connecticut Yankee, country club Republicans in ill fitting cowboy suits. Their (and Rove’s) Tex-Mex view of the USA has also done great harm to the party’s prospects.

And John McCain will improve nothing and solve nothing for the party. Far better to sail the rough seas for a couple of years and begin rebuilding in the House and Senate in 2010 and 2012.

And, with Blue Dog Dems. that largely helped the Dems. regain Congress in 2006, they cannot do all they want to do, as their many attempts to cut funding or set exact dates for troop withdrawal from Iraq show.