ConfirmThem

By DanCT Posted in Senate Rules — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

SENATE MINORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D-NV)
Minority Leader Harry Reid Said Janice Rogers Brown “Is A Woman Who Wants To Take Us Back To The Civil War Days.� “[Reid] described California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, one of the Bush nominees Republicans will probably float first for approval, as an African-American opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus. ‘She is a woman who wants to take us back to the Civil War days,’ Reid said.� (Erin Neff, ‘Del Sol High School Appearance: Reid Calls Bush ‘A Loser,’� Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/7/05)

Reid Said He Believes The President’s Judicial Nominees Are “Bad People.� “Reid took students through a primer of the five most-disputed judicial nominees, arguing some were opposed to the 1973 Roe v. Wade case legalizing abortion. He charged others with trying to dismantle government programs like Social Security. ‘I don’t want them. I think they’re bad people,’ Reid said of the nominees.� (Erin Neff, ‘Del Sol High School Appearance: Reid Calls Bush ‘A Loser,’� Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/7/05)

Reid Threatened To Take The Debate “Behind The Pool Hall And See Who Wins.� “Noting that the only complaint he has heard from fellow Democrats is that not enough of Bush’s judicial nominees were blocked in the past four years, Reid said he is prepared ‘to go behind the pool hall and see who wins this one.’� (“Washington In Brief,� The Washington Post, 2/2/05)

Reid Accused President Bush Of Lying About The Role Of The Administration In The Constitutional Option Debate. “Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) accused President Bush on Friday of lying to him about the role his administration would play in a possible Senate rules change — the latest sign the chamber is headed for an unprecedented showdown over judicial nominees.� (Mark Preston, “Reid: Bush Lied About White House Role In Nuclear Option,� Roll Call, 4/22/05)

Reid Also Called President Bush “A Loser.� “But in the course of a discussion on filibusters and Senate rules, Washington’s top Democrat ended up giving the 60 juniors a good lesson in partisan politics, particularly about the commander in chief. ‘The man’s father is a wonderful human being,’ Reid said in response to a question about President Bush’s policies. ‘I think this guy is a loser.’ ‘I think President Bush is doing a bad job,’ he added to a handful of chuckles.� (Erin Neff, “Del Sol High School Appearance: Reid Calls Bush ‘A Loser,’� Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/7/05)

SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA)
Senator Edward Kennedy Called The President’s Judicial Nominees “Neanderthals.� KENNEDY: “[W]hat has not ended is the resolution and the determination of the members of the United States Senate to continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United States for any court - federal court in the United States.� (CNN’s “Inside Politics,� 11/14/03)

Kennedy Claimed He Would Not Stay Silent “While The Right Wing Hijacks The Federal Judiciary.� “Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts … saying, ‘We cannot stay silent while the right wing hijacks the federal judiciary.’ Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees, Mr. Kennedy said, ‘are poised to use the courts to turn back the clock on civil rights.’� (Adam Clymer, “At Rights Forum, The Target Is Bush,� The New York Times, 1/18/03)

SENATOR ROBERT BYRD (D-WV)

Senator Robert Byrd Compared Republican Attempts To Stop The Filibuster Against Judicial Nominees To Tactics By Adolf Hitler In Nazi Germany. BYRD: “We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. . . . Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler’s dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law. Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. . . . Hitler’s originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal. That is what the nuclear option seeks to do to rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.� (Sen. Robert Byrd, Congressional Record, 3/1/05)

Byrd Even Likened Republican Attempts To Stop The Filibuster To The Crucifixion Of Christ, The Smearing Of Columbus And The Torture Of Christians. BYRD: “The Senate today is one place where, no matter what else may exist, there is still a chance to be heard, an opportunity to speak, the duty to examine, and the obligation to protect. It is one of the few refuges of democracy. Minorities have an illustrious past, full of suffering, torture, smear, and even death. Jesus Christ was killed by a majority; Columbus was smeared; and Christians have been tortured.� (Senator Robert Byrd, Congressional Record, 3/1/05)

Ø Senator Ted Kennedy Praised Byrd “For His Excellent Comments.� KENNEDY: “Mr. President, I compliment my friend and colleague from West Virginia for his excellent comments about the responsibilities of the Senate under the Constitution and the implications of a parliamentary maneuver that would effectively undermine the constitutional rights of our Members to speak in accordance with the ways our Founding Fathers intended.� (Senator Edward Kennedy, Congressional Record, 3/1/05)

Ø Kennedy Called Byrd’s Arguments “Well Thought Out, Reasoned, Compelling, Legitimate, And Persuasive.� KENNEDY: “Once again, the Senator from West Virginia has spoken eloquently and passionately about this institution and about this Constitution. . . . We, once again, thank him and urge our colleagues in the Senate to pay close attention to his well thought out, reasoned, compelling, legitimate, and persuasive arguments.� (Senator Edward Kennedy, Congressional Record, 3/1/05)

SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY)

At A Rally Sponsored By Radical Liberal Group MoveOn.org, Senator Charles Schumer Declared Republicans Wanted To Turn The Senate Into A “Dictatorship.� SCHUMER: “The ideologues in the Senate want to turn what the founding fathers called the cooling saucer of democracy into the rubberstamp of dictatorship.� (MoveOn.org PAC Rally, Washington, DC, 3/16/05)

During The MoveOn Rally, Schumer Warned Of “Doomsday For Democracy.� SCHUMER: “They want to make this country into a banana republic where if you don’t get your way you change the rules. Are we going to let them? It’ll be a doomsday for democracy if we do.� (MoveOn.org PAC Rally, Washington, DC, 3/16/05)

SENATOR BARBARA MIKULSKI (D-MD)

Senator Barbara Mikulski Likened Republicans To Klansmen For “Hiding In Processes� To Bottle Up President Clinton’s Judicial Nominations. “U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, compared Republicans in Congress holding up President Clinton’s judicial and Cabinet appointments to Klansmen… Mikulski, the keynote speaker, accused Republicans of ‘hiding in committees and hiding in processes’ to anonymously bottle up Clinton appointments, then criticized Klansmen for ‘hiding behind hoods and white sheets.’� (Tom Pelton, et. al., “Image Is Everything,� The Baltimore Sun, 1/25/98)

DEMOCRAT NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN HOWARD DEAN

The Democrat National Chairman Recently Has Called Republicans “Evil,� “Corrupt� And “Brain-Dead.� “Since taking over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year, the former presidential candidate has been quoted in newspapers making unusually caustic remarks about Republicans. Dean has suggested that they are ‘evil.’ That they are ‘corrupt.’ He called them ‘brain-dead’ during a stop in Toronto …� (Brian Faler, “A Scathing Chairman Dean Finds Republicans ‘Evil,’ ‘Corrupt’ and ‘Brain-Dead,’� The Washington Post, 4/25/05)

Ø A Footnote: Reid Insists The Chairman Is “Not Some Wild-Eyed, Left-Wing Nut. “In the state of Vermont, they know what kind of person [Howard Dean] is. He is not some wild-eyed, left-wing nut.� (Sen. Harry Reid, as quoted by Scott Sonner, “Reid: Democrats Failed To Take Message To Rural America, Nevada,� The Associated Press, 2/23/05)

(Hat tip: Katie Harbath)