Posted on 11/04/2004 7:45:07 PM PST by LowNslow
GOP Senator Arlen Specter Vows to Block Bush's {Judicial} Nominees Newsmax.com ^ | 10-28-04 | Not given
Posted on 10/29/2004 5:12:00 PM EDT by Theodore R.
GOP Sen. Specter Vows to Block Bush's Nominees
Recall that alleged Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, upon winning the primary, immediately backstabbed President Bush, who had campaigned for him instead of actual Republican Pat Toomey. Turns out Specter was just getting started.
We now see that the usually pro-Democrat Pittsburgh Post-Gazette endorsed the sharp-horned RINO in Tuesday's general election for this reason: "Before the Post-Gazette editorial board, he promised that no extremists would be approved for the bench."
What the pro-abortion Specter and pro-abortion Post-Gazette mean by "extremist" is anyone who isn't pro-abortion or who otherwise follows the U.S. Constitution instead of making up legislation from the bench.
"Even if he votes nine out of 10 times for the administration, we trust his word that the 10 percent of difference will be a brake on the worst excesses of a second Bush term, if it comes to that," the pee-yoo P-G snarled.
Specter must not chair JC. He is better suited to be co-chair.
Co-chair of the Underwater Basket Weaving Committee, I hope you mean.
Get Santorum to chair Judiciary.
>
> November 3, 2004
> Transcript
>
>
> JORDAN: Senator, you didn't talk about the Judiciary
> Committee, it is something you are expected to Chair this January.
> With 3 Supreme Court Justices rumored to retire soon, starting with
> Rehnquist, how do you see this unfolding in the next couple of months
> and what part do you intend to play on it?
>
> SPECTER: You know my approach is cautious with respect to
> the Judiciary Committee. I am in line, Senator Hatch is barred now by
> term limits and Senate Rules so that I am next in line. There has to
> be a vote of the Committee and I have already started to talk to some
> of my fellow committee members. I am respectful of Senate traditions,
> so I am not designating myself Chairman, I will wait for the Senate
> procedures to act in do course. You are right on the substance, the
> Chief Justice is gravely ill. I had known more about that than had
> appeared in the media. When he said he was going to be back on
> Monday, it was known inside that he was not going to be back on
> Monday. The full extent of his full incapacitation is really not
> known, I believe there will be cause for deliberation by the
> President. The Constitution has a clause called advise and consent,
> the advise part is traditionally not paid a whole lot of attention to,
> I wouldn't quite say ignored, but close to that. My hope that the
> Senate will be more involved in expressing our views. We start off
> with the basic fact that the Democrats are have filibustered and
> expect them to filibuster if the nominees are not within the broad
> range of acceptability. I think there is a very broad range of
> Presidential Discretion but there is a range.
>
> ODOM: Is Mr. Bush, he just won the election, even with
> the popular vote as well. If he wants anti-abortion judges up there,
> you are caught in the middle of it what are you going to do? The
> party is going one way and you are saying this.
>
> SPECTER: When you talk about judges who would change the
> right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v Wade, I think that is
> unlikely. And I have said that bluntly during the course of the
> campaign and before. When the Inquirer endorsed me, they quoted my
> statement that Roe v Wade was inviolate. And that 1973 decision,
> which has been in effect now for 33 years, was buttressed by the 1992
> decision, written by three Republican justices-O'Conner, Souter, and
> Kennedy-and nobody can doubt Anthony Kennedy's conservativism or
> pro-life position, but that's the fabric of the country. Nobody can be
> confirmed today who didn't agree with Brown v. Board of Education on
> integration, and I believe that while you traditionally do not ask a
> nominee how they're going to decide a specific case, there's a
> doctorate and a fancy label term, stari decisis, precedent which I
> think protects that issue. That is my view, now, before, and always.
>
>
> ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother
> to send somebody up there like that.
>
> SPECTER: Can't hear you
>
> ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother
> or make the move to send somebody up there who is clearly
> anti-abortion.
>
> SPECTER: I don't want to prejudge what the President is
> going to do. But the President is well aware of what happened when a
> number of his nominees were sent up, were filibustered, and the
> President has said he is not going to impose a litmus test, he faced
> that issue squarely in the third debate and I would not expect the
> President, I would expect the President to be mindful of the
> considerations that I mentioned.
>
> JORDAN: However, Senator the President has President has sent
> up, as you know, a number of very very conservative judges socially,
> you have made a point in this campaign of saying that you have
> supported all of those ______ at least I the last two years, how is
> this going to square with what you are saying today about wanting the
> Republican party to be big tent and moderate.
>
> SPECTER: I have been very careful in what I have said and
> what I have done. The nominees whom I supported in Committee, I had
> reservations on. As for judge Pryor, there had been an issue as to
> whether as Attorney General he had raised money, I said in voting him
> out of committee, that he did not have my vote on the floor until I
> satisfied myself about collateral matters. The woman judge out of
> California, who had dismissed a case on invasion of privacy where the
> doctor had permitted an insurance adjuster to watch a mammogram, I had
> a reservation on it, so I wanted to talk to her to see if that was
> aberrational or whether that really reflected her judgment on each and
> every one of those cases. This may be more detail than you want, but
> there was one judge for a district judgeship, Judge Holmes, in
> Arkansas, who was first in his class at the University of Arkansas,
> had a PhD from Duke, had a master's degree, was touted by both
> Democratic Arkansas Senators, was supported by 2 pro-choice women,
> Senator Landrieu and Senator Lincoln, highly regarded in the Arkansas
> editorial pages, and for a district court judgeship I thought. He had
> made two statements, and they were, one was in a religious context
> that a wife should be subservient to a husband, that was in a
> religious context. Then he made a statement doubting the potential
> for impregnation from rape, and made an absurd statement that it would
> be as rare as snow in Florida in July. That was about a 20 year-old
> statement and I brought him in and sat down, had a long talk with him
> and concluded that they were not disqualifiers. He was the only judge
> whom I voted to confirm on the floor vote where any question has been
> raised and I think that was the right decision for a district court
> judgeship, not to make that a disqualifier. There are few if any
> whose record if you go back over 30 or 40 years, and not find some
> dumb thing, I don't want you to take a to close a look at my 40 year
> record.
>
> HIGHSMITH: Talk to us a little bit beyond judgeships, you
> said again today and last night that your goal now is to moderate the
> party, bring it to the center.
>
> SPECTER: Correct
>
> [BREAK-Bringing the Country Together Question]
>
> [BREAK-Stem Cell Question]
>
> MACINTOSH: What are the characteristics that you are
> looking for in any candidate for the high court who might come your
> way in the next year or two?
>
> SPECTER: Well I would like to see a select someone in the
> mold of Holmes, Brandeis, Cardozo, or Marshall. With all due respect
> to the U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one. And I haven't minced
> any words about that during the confirmation process.
>
> MACINTOSH: Meaning?
>
> SPECTER: Where I have questioned them all very closely.
> I had an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on
> trying to keep the Navy base, and you should heard what the eight of
> them had to say to me. They were almost as tough as this gang here
> this morning.
>
> ODOM: Senator, the judges you mentioned are obviously
> renown. Are you saying that there are no greatness on there, is that
> what you're driving at?
>
> SPECTER: Yes. Can you take yes for an answer Vernon?
> I'm saying that we don't have anybody of the stature of Oliver Wendell
> Holmes, or Willy Brandeis, or Cardozo, or Marshall. That's what I'm
> saying. I'm saying that we have a court which they're graduates from
> the Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia basically, some
> other Circuit Courts of Appeals. I think that we could use, and I am
> repeating myself again, a Holmes or a Brandeis.
>
> ODOM: Would you resign to take the appointment?
> You're the only person I can think of?
>
> SPECTER: I can think of quite a few other people.
>
> JORDAN: Like who?
>
> SPECTER: I think there's some possibility, just a slight
> possibility, I may not be offered the appointment.
>
> JORDAN: Senator, who do you think would be a good candidate?
>
> SPECTER: For the Supreme Court?
>
> JORDAN: Yes.
>
> SPECTER: I have some ideas but I'm going to withhold my
> comments. If, as, and when the President asks that question, Lara,
> I'll have some specific information for him. In the alternative, if
> you become President, I'll have it for you.
>
> [BREAK-Election 2010 question]
>
> [BREAK-Iraq questions]
>
> Jordan: Do you expect to continue supporting all of
> President Bush's judicial nominees?
>
> AS: I am hopeful that I'll be able to do that. That
> obviously depends upon the President's judicial nominees. I'm hopeful
> that I can support them.
>
> [BREAK-Election question]
>
> [End Press Conference]
Isn't this about the 20th empty vanity on Specter? Just why is it necessary for so many to start their own threads on Specter saying so little? Specter has been slapped down. He will not impound any Bush nominees. If he does, he will be removed from his position as chair of the judiciary committee.
There he goes, making a spector of himself... again!
Co-chair of the Senate Janitorial Committee maybe.
Damned RINO's ruin all our fun. Chaffee, Snow, Specter. When will it all end?
You had to be dead or deaf not to see this coming.
Specter has now run away from what he said he had mis-spoken on. Read: I got taken to the wood shed by W and had my butt paddled.
A thread started by posting a previous thread with no links posted by Theodore R...... LOL....
Aren't there enough Specter Threads running to make your comments on......
What President Bush must do is get the party together and read the riot act. Enough is enough. Time to weed out the Republicans that are really CRATS in disguise. If these Republicans don't get together, they'll lose many votes next time around.
Remember some of us warned of this back during the primary?
Specter shouldn't chair ANYTHING. RINO's shouldn't be rewarded for backstabbing.
Oh Mr. Specter, you are going down.
I got pretty mad about this yesterday, but I'm willing to wait and see. I don't like Specter one bit, but if he's willing to work with Bush and do his job as a team player, I'm not going to worry about what's going on inside his pointy head. What matters is getting the job done.
A socially moderate judiciary is a good thing. Since when did such things as basic as a separation of church and state become an unacceptable position for republicans?
I am not at all sure you can make that assurance with such finality. If, by impound you mean a refusal to move it to a committee vote, you are asking other chairmen to undermine their own authority and one of the firmest and most cherished sources of their own power and vote to unseat another chairman for exercising the same prerogative.
A chairman need not "impound" he need merely vote against in committee and the nominee of his own party is probably doomed, the fall out would be so severe.
Or he can vote to sustain a filibuster, a shock which would carry beyond the nominee's case and give cover to Rinos in Maine and Rhode Island and elsewhere.
I am afraid once seated in the chair, a old bull with no future political aspirations (he will be 80 at the end of his term) is virtually immune to carrots or sticks.
Finally, history holds painfull memories of Presidents who thought they could interfere with the arcane ways of the Senate many of whom have come to an unhappy awakening. Any attempt by Bush to intimidate will likely backfire.
I am afraid, if you conclude as I have that Specter is too untrustworthy to cede a great portion of the domestic fruits of one of the most important election victories is American history, then you must accept that he must be eliminated now before he assumes the chair. Afterwards will be too late.
The great battle for the Court, which is no less than a struggle for the sole of America, cannot be won without an enthusiastic champion in the Chair of the Judiciary Committee. It will not do that he is merely not obstructing, he must lead.
Specter cannot be trusted. He cannot be entrusted with another 30 million lives.
He's better suited for a rocking chair.
Judicial nominees are another ball of wax. All of the Bush nominees will go to the floor - all of them - unless the nominee has something come out, which deems him or her unfit, in which event the nomination will be withdrawn.
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