So much for Specter

November 1, 2005

While Harriet Miers’ nomination was falling apart, Arlen Specter seemed annoyed. He was clearly irritated by Miers’ inability to deal with his question about privacy rights; he didn’t like the fact that the White House gave James Dobson more information than it did the Senate; and Specter just didn’t seem happy in general with Miers’ lack of qualifications.

With Miers’ departure, there was speculation that Specter may be a key ally for Dems once a new nominee was announced. After all, shortly after last year’s election, Specter publicly encouraged the White House to avoid any Supreme Court nominees who would overturn Roe v Wade. For a few weeks, the right made his life miserable, and Specter has a reputation as one who holds a grudge.

Given this, Alito’s nomination offers Specter a rare opportunity. As Atrios noted yesterday, Specter has been “milking” the “moderate pro-choice Republican thing” throughout his career. Alito gives Specter a chance to show some backbone and stand for his allegedly centrist principles.

Will Specter seize the opportunity? Not so much.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said after meeting with Judge Alito for more than an hour on Monday that the judge’s dissent in the Planned Parenthood case was a “very narrow ruling” that did not signify dissent with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion.

Mr. Specter, a strong supporter of abortion rights, also said Judge Alito had told him that he recognized a right to privacy in the Constitution, a crucial underpinning of Roe.

Alito told Specter he had nothing to worry about, causing Specter to effectively say, “He sounds good to me!”

Specter even sent word to the Gang of 14 — of which he is not a member — that Alito “hardly measures up to the standard the Gang of 14 had of extraordinary circumstances.”

In other words, if there was any hope that Specter might be at all helpful, it’s gone.

Specter skewered the Miers nomination because she publically embarrassed him by assurring him on privacy. After he told the press she agreed with Griswold she said Specter misunderstood what she agreed to. You don’t call the Chair of the judiciary committee a liar/fool and get away with it. But by the same token Specter isn’t going to cross th White House on mere principle. After all, this is still the GOP. My guess is the Dems don’t have the balls to do any more than blink and flinch, but I’d love to be proved wrong. Pelosi seems enthusiastic about a filibuster, but she’s in the wrong chamber.

  • Or, and I think it’s still disappointing, Specter is right and the guy will respect Roe in future rulings. However, I say it is still disappointing because of his terrible rulings on other issues that he will still have to fess up for.

  • Typical Dems. The Republicans pulled another fast one, and the Dems fell hook, line, and sinker for it. By ditching their own party nominee, they can claim that, ‘see? we do take this vetting thing seriously.’, meanwhile pushing through the partisan idealogue that they wanted all along. There is no coincidence here, and the public tiffs with the White House were just pandering to the media.

    They win again.

  • Well, let’s look at it another way. What is wingnuttia going to think about Alito assuring Spector that he respects/ or at least looks narrowly at Roe and the right to privacy? Shouldn’t they go ballistic? Shouldn’t Spector get another public correction soon? Shouldn’t Dobson say he has since heard from God or Karl things he probably shouldn’t have? Of course, in the reality based community, Alito remains a disaster no matter what. Bush is nothing if not consistently catastrophic for the country.

  • Castor, they only win if the Dems let them. Much of the media, mainstream and otherwise, is painting this as the fight both sides wanted, a long-delayed but necessary fight over the basic principles of what appears to be an evenly-divided country. I tend to agree.

    That said, I think of all of the moments since the first inaugural of W this is the best time to have this fight. His numbers are down and the public doesn’t trust him anymore, the press has found at least some of its spine, and we were very measured and kept our powder dry through the Roberts and Miers nominations.

    The situation is set up as well for us as it ever will be. By nominating someone who is among th emost conservative jurists on the federal bench, the public is prsented a stark contrast of what the future would be like under the right wing’s preferences or under ours. We can argue that Bush has gone well outside of any mandate he ever had (in my view he had nil), and point out Alito’s record of extremism on choice, civil rights, gun control, etc. It is now down to a pure, unvarnished referendum on the wedge issues, on tactics, on raw power.

    Having lost two elections we should have won, we are damned lucky Bush doesn’t have the power to slide Falwell and Schlafly onto the court. This is a great chance for us, a rare chance for us, to really make this a fight that engages the public. No moderate Repub woman should feel certain in her party affiliation after this one; no libertarian-leaning suburbanites either.

    If we lose this fight, it is because we really are weaker than the Rs or are in denial about what the country wants and stands for. Any D that doesn’t toe the party line on the filibuster shouldn’t be a D. This is what it is all about. And we can win this one.

  • I actually wish we’d really fight, but I doubt we will. That said, I say we put a nominal fight and get on to other, more positive business. If Scalito makes it onto the Court this term he might scare the liver out of some of the voters who’ve been too busy watching tv or whatever to bother with politics … we need very little more turnout to take back both houses of Congress next year and the WH in 2008. I know he’ll be on for life, etc., but there’s little we can do about that. We’ve run two lousy presidential campaigns in a row, and now we’re paying the price for that. TS. He will probably overturn Roe, no matter he says to Specter, but I don’t believe that was ever properly decided in the courts anyway. Civilized states passed better laws than Roe before Roe came to the SCOTUS. Democrats have got to stop turning to the Courts whenever they find themselves to “busy” (at god knows what) to politic. Read something about Nancy Pelosi’s mentor, the late Phil Burton. Come to life.

  • I live in Pennsylvania and Arlen Specter is one of my senators. What we need to do is to get Specter to stake his reputation on his belief that Alito won’t disturb the balance of the court on the issue of abortion–that Roe will not be overturned. Why would we get Specter to put his reputation on the line, you may ask? The scuttlebutt here is Pennsylvania is that Arlen wants “to will” his senate seat to his lawyer son Shanin. There is no way that going to happen if Specter ends up supporting Alito, and Alito goes on to help overturn Roe. If Arlen won’t put it on the line, Shanin can forget about being a future senator.

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