ConfirmThem

By Paul Zummo Posted in Uncategorized — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Gotta love that Arlen. From an e-mail to Kathryn Lopez in The Corner.

Yesterday - - Wednesday - - the Senate voted on what will turn out to be the critical amendment in its class action reform debate. It was an amendment by Senators Feinstein and Bingaman that would have gutted the bill and which would have eliminated the long negotiated "clean" Senate bill that the House of Represnetatives could accept without having to send the bill back to the Senate.

One, one, Republican voted with the bill's opponents. Was it the almost always against legal reform Richard Shelby? -- no. The one Republican was the new Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Arlen Specter.

Just what does this say about so many future legislative issues and the judicial confirmation process? It could get very ugly.

Why does the good Senator do everything in his power to confirm the suspicions so many of us had of him over a year ago?

It is getting clearer and clearer from interviews, speeches, and other public statements that Senator Specter has not even been remotely humbled or cautioned by the attempts of conservatives to have him removed as the chair of the Judiciary Committee or to defeat him in the primary. The adminsitration's obstinate refusal to play hardball has not caused him to mellow in the slightest. Instead, it seems Specter has learned that there's really nothing the party can do to him. He's been re-elected for another six-year term, was able to overcome a purge attempt after the election, and realizes that an attempt to do anything to him now could very well backfire. From this rather comfortable position Specter can continue to be a thorn in the side of the party, and one with little fear of a substantial blowback.

Now to be fair, Specter may have had substantive issues with this bill. It might be hasty to declare that this one vote is an indication that he will be an obstructionist when it comes time to confirm judges. However, the pattern over the past few months hardly comforts those who prayed for Toomey's victory in the primary.

What's especially agonizing is that Specter every now and then hints that he's willing to work to get the President's justices confirmed. These occasional blips in what has been an otherwise consistent career of being a general nuisance have succeeded in suckering otherwise intelligent people into giving him another chance. Like the abused wife who gives her husband just one more chance, the Republican party's reluctance to finally cast off its least reliable Senator is going to cost them on what is the most important issue of the day.

We who have consistently spoken out against Specter absolutely do not want to see the day come when we say, "we told you so." But . . .