The Specter of GOP Warfare

How did Arlen Specter become Republican Enemy No. 1?

Could it be that the GOP fighting machine, which has been firing on all cylinders for two years, needs someone new to fight?

The pro-choice Pennsylvania senator has never been a favorite of the right, which mounted a tough primary challenge against him last spring. Conservatives have never forgotten that he voted against Robert Bork. That was back in 1987, but elephants have long memories.

The Specters of the world--moderate-to-liberals in the Northeast such as Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and (once upon a time) Jim Jeffords--are increasingly out of step with the Republican Party. The Sunbelt-based GOP barely needs them. And so, depending on the issue, they have become irritants to be tolerated by what is now a governing party.

Once in awhile, though, someone like Specter becomes a key legislator. And under the GOP seniority system, he's in line to become Judiciary chairman. And he created an uproar with some post-election remarks that were reported this way by the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Specter, as presumptive chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that he would block any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court who opposed abortion rights. Reiterating his position that a woman's right to choose is 'inviolate,' he said overturning Roe v. Wade today would be akin to trying to reverse Brown v. Board of Education, the court's 1954 landmark desegregation decision."

Specter later insisted he hadn't been warning the White House, simply describing reality in a chamber where it takes 60 votes to block a filibuster. But lots of conservative pundits are demanding that Specter be denied the chairmanship. This is one intra-party fight that may presage a future struggle for the soul of Republicanism.

National Review manages to oppose Specter without mentioning his name, at least in what's posted online:

"Senate Republicans now face a momentous fight of their own over judicial nominations. This may very well include difficult battles over the makeup of the Supreme Court. And that's why they must allow Orrin Hatch to remain chairman of the Judiciary Committee for two more years. He is the right man for the right committee at the right time."

Hatch is also required by Senate GOP rules to step down after a six-year term, guys.

"Like wounded animals backed into a corner, the Left will now fight with more vigor. Liberals understand that their social agenda is doomed unless judicial activists on the federal bench salvage it for them. That's why they're presently rushing to the courts in the hope that judges will overturn the will of the people in the eleven states where large majorities just approved ballot initiatives banning gay marriage. For the Left, the federal bench is a last-ditch line of defense against the barbarians from the red states (and not a few blue ones). The next Supreme Court vacancy will only increase their sense of desperation.

"As this struggle looms, Senate Republicans need the steady hand of Utah's Orrin Hatch. His experience as chairman of the Judiciary Committee will prove to be a vital resource in the months ahead. The same goes for the bulk of his staff, which has already confronted Democratic obstinacy and won't waver as it joins the battle once more."

The Wall Street Journal editorial page sees huge stakes:

"We assume that Mr. Bush is listening to the warnings from key Democrats, who are already saying that a fight is inevitable no matter what. If that's true, and we believe it is, then Mr. Bush might as well nominate judges worth the battle. Selecting another blank slate like David Souter won't do him any good, because his supporters will object while the liberal opposition will still 'Bork' whomever he sends up. Though sometimes said to be a 'moderate'--no one really knows--White House General Counsel Alberto Gonzales will be pummeled because he signed off on the famous 'torture memos.'. . . .

"This is the political context in which the weekend flap over Arlen Specter fits. The liberal Pennsylvania Republican is in line to become Judiciary Committee chairman, or at least he was until he hinted that he'd block conservative nominees. He later backtracked, but not before igniting a stop-Specter movement among conservative interest groups.

"A Judiciary chairman's job is not to pretend that he's the second President but to facilitate a hearing in committee and a vote on the floor. If Mr. Specter wants to vote against a nominee, so be it. But in his institutional role he owes it to his party, and to the President who saved him from political oblivion in the Pennsylvania primary this year, to guarantee every nominee an expeditious floor vote. If Mr. Specter can't make that promise to his colleagues when they organize the new Senate, he doesn't deserve the job."

The Inquirer's editorial page takes a different stance:

"Perhaps Specter was flexing his ego a bit too much after winning his own reelection last week. Perhaps he should have realized his comments would provoke some social conservatives, who never treated the twice-elected Clinton as legitimate, but are behaving as though President Bush's 51 percent majority is a license to steamroll America.

"While the timing of Specter's remark was impolitic, the substance of what he said was (a) true and (b) nothing new. In the new Senate, Democrats still will hold enough seats to block a nominee who is overtly hostile to Roe v. Wade."

Meanwhile, says this morning's Inquirer, "the offices of Republican members of the Judiciary Committee continued to be inundated with phone calls from conservatives urging that senators block Specter's appointment as chairman. . . . At the White House morning briefing, in response to a question about Specter, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan first said that it was the Senate's job to select chairmen and that the White House would have no role."

The Second-Term Shakeup has begun, with John Ashcroft and Don Evans bowing out, as expected.

"To his supporters," says the New York Times, "Mr. Ashcroft was an aggressive and unapologetic warrior against terrorism, unflinching in his efforts to remake the Justice Department in order to avoid a repetition of the Sept. 11 attacks. . . .

"To his many critics, however, Mr. Ashcroft was a symbol of excesses of the antiterror campaign, a man engaged in overzealous prosecutions and insensitive to civil liberties. He became an applause line in John Kerry's stump speeches. . . .

"In his four years at the helm of the Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft left his mark by promoting a variety of conservative causes. He overruled prosecutors to push for more aggressive use of the death penalty, expanded prosecutions for Internet pornography, advocated a broader interpretation of gun ownership rights and subpoenaed the medical records of abortion providers.

"But it is his legacy in the fight against terrorism that is sure to be dissected by historians for generations. . . . Terrorism prosecutions in Detroit and elsewhere would crumble or come under withering criticism, and a report from the Justice Department's own inspector general objected to the department's prolonged detention - and occasional physical abuse - of hundreds of illegal immigrants with no clear ties to terrorism who were arrested in the period after the attacks."

Rudy doesn't seem to be campaigning for the job, says the New York Post:

"Giuliani -- one of the most popular Republicans in America and a key, tireless Bush supporter this fall -- instantly jumped to the top of short lists for attorney general, but aides insisted he's not interested. . . .

"Giuliani, who served as the No. 3 Justice Department official under Ronald Reagan, has said he'll soon decide whether to run for president in 2008. Being attorney general could make it harder to run.

"Another key prospect as the nation's top law-enforcement official is Ashcroft's former deputy, Larry Thompson. If appointed, he would be the first black attorney general."

In the New Republic, Lawrence Kaplan ponders the Democrats' fate:

"The day after the election, a friend--okay, my father--phoned to let me know me he was packing his bags for Australia. The very thought of enduring four more years of George W. Bush was too much for him to contemplate. And so it went last week, as a parade of friends and relatives, knowing full well that I supported Bush, phoned and emailed to deplore the country's ignorance. Echoing a question posed by Slate, they asked: Why do so many Americans hate Democrats? Maybe, just maybe, the answer has something to do with the fact that so many Democrats seem to hate them. . . .

"What if their own estrangement leads not to insight, but rather to blindness and, more important, to separation from the very Americans they mean to influence?

"To be alienated these days, after all, is what Todd Gitlin once described as 'a rock-bottom prerequisite for membership' in an establishment of its own. That establishment, comprising much of the media, academia, the punditocracy, and indeed entire swaths of blue America, forms a cohesive community--with its own rewards, norms, and favorite enemies. And as the post-election commentary has revealed, one of those enemies happens to be mainstream America. . . . As nearly every election going back to 1968 shows, the more liberals become estranged from Middle America, the more Middle America becomes estranged from them. The latter reaction, needless to say, generates far more votes."

Josh Marshall has been poring over transcripts:

"In our continuing effort to bring you examples of the sort of wing-nuts and fanatics who now sit in the councils of power in Washington, note this exchange Sunday between George Stephanopoulos and James Dobson on This Week, shortly before Dobson and a hand full of his followers dragged George out to Desales Street and burned him at the stake. . . .

"GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Dr. Dobson, you also have a problem with the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy. I want to show something that was reported in 'The Daily Oklahoman' during the campaign. In the 'Daily Oklahoman,' it quoted you saying, 'Patrick Leahy is a God's people hater. I don't know if he hates God, but he hates God's people.' Now, Dr. Dobson, that doesn't sound like a particularly Christian thing to say. Do you think you owe Senator Leahy an apology?

"DR JAMES DOBSON: George, you think you ought to lecture me on what a Christian is all about? You know, I think -I think I'll stand by the things I have said. Patrick Leahy has been in opposition to most of the things that I believe. He is the one that took the reference to God out of the oath.

"GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But Dr. Dobson, excuse me for a second. You use the word hate. You said that he's a 'God's people hater.' How do you back that up?

"DR JAMES DOBSON: Well, there's been an awful lot of hate expressed in this election. And most of it has been aimed at those who hold to conservative Christian views. He is certainly not the only one to take a position like that. But think that that is -that's where he's coming from. He has certainly opposed most of the things that conservative Christians stand for.

"GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apology?

"DR JAMES DOBSON: No apology."

Progressive Editor Matthew Rothschild unloads on Kerry:

"He never could give a decent speech.

"But what was reprehensible about it was Kerry's insistence that his supporters cave.

"And I'm not even talking about the question of whether to challenge the Ohio tally.

"I'm referring to Kerry's command that we act like good little boys and girls and eat our spinach and work with George Bush. . . .

"You lost, John. We all lost. Huge. And your fatuousness cannot hide that fact.

"Kerry continued his lecture. As Americans, he said, his supporters have an 'obligation. We are required now to work together for the good of our country. In the days ahead, we must find common cause, we must join in the common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor.'

"Hell no!

"Common cause with George W. Bush?

"Common cause with Dick Cheney?

"Common cause with Karl Rove?

"Common cause with Donald Rumsfeld?

"Common cause with Paul Wolfowitz?

"Common cause with John Ashcroft?

"We have nothing in common with them. Their cause is not our cause. For the good of the country, we must resist them."

Reason's Matt Welch is not a great fortune teller:

"First, the crow -- I predicted John Kerry would win 300 electoral votes, and tie George Bush with 49 percent of the popular vote. Also, unlike anyone else at the magazine, I voted for the Democrat, leaving my presidential picking record at a perfect 0 for 4.

"Worse, I predicted 17 months ago that pushing for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage would specifically backfire on the Republicans, and cost them the White House. . . .

"There is zero reason to believe Bush will ever listen to libertarians, about anything. Small-government types didn't get out the Republican vote; Evangelicals and other Christian conservatives did.

"Libertarians have hammered Bush about stem-cell research, his staggering deficits, flippant eagerness to amend the Constitution, McCain-Feingold, the Federal Communications Commission, and the spectacular growth of government under his watch; all while noisily advertising their own political defections and/or flirtations with divided government. The Religious Right has been much more loyal, and exponentially more productive in delivering votes. There is no practical reason why Bush should ever throw a bone to libertarians."

Slate's Dana Stevens, reviewing HBO's "Real Time" with Bill Maher, takes the posterior view:

"In the last few minutes of the show, why was Andrew Sullivan -- there's no polite way to put this -- rubbing his own [butt], in full view of the cameras and for what seemed like an eternity? Anyone who had ever been caught in a social blunder -- picking their nose on the train, say -- could only look on in horrified identification: Imagine being caught on live TV fondling one's own tush! I know bloggers aren't known for their social graces, but what problem was Sullivan addressing with his not-so-furtive adjustments?"

Which prompted the following item from Sullivan:

"SLATE HITS BOTTOM: Yep, they have an entire article on the fact that at the end of HBO's 'Real Time with Bill Maher' (transcript here), I got up and readjusted my power-glutes. Slow news day? It was the first thing my boyfriend pointed out to me when I called him after the show. The reason? Slate demands an answer. It itched."

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