Santorum, last night:
"I said will you support the president's nominees? We had a 51-to-49 majority in the Senate. He said, 'I'll support the president's nominees as chairman.'"Specter, today:
"He is not correct. I made no commitment to him about supporting judges... I made no deal."
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35 comments:
So, who are you gonna believe, the politician or the ..
.
ah,
.
politician?
Specter's a disaster even in retirement.
If I were designing a primary to make all the Republican candidates look as bad as possible to weaken them and the Republican party as much as possible before they had to face Obama, what is going on right now with the Republican primary is exactly what I would design.
The only saving grace for the Republican party is that maybe enough Americans aren't paying attention so that they will only lose by a little and not a lot.
The point was not getting an express promise from Spector. The point was the GOP's decision from President Bush on down not to try replacing the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and risk failing to do so.
He was not known as Snarlen Arlen for nothing.
And it worked!
Not proven.
Three mutually opposed candidates walked into a bar, and the bartender said, "What'll you have, Arlen?"
Andy: That and this (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-21/poll-obama-republicans/53211198/1).
Mainly this. You can get away with a lot if half the country views both you and your opponent as failures.
The Grimms tell of two brothers who were lost in the forest. "Never forsake me, and I will never forsake you," said one brother to the other. "Don't be stupid," said Arlen.
"not proven".
Good one Hardin!
This is all very stupid. No president is going to nominate anyone for the Supreme Court without first consulting with the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman. Likewise, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman is not ever going to criticize a nominee selected by a president from his own party. It's just an unbreakable loop of common sense.
Both of these people -- Specter and Santorum -- are therefore full of shit and Pennsylvania is obviously full of idiots if these politicians are the ones they send to Washington.
Seven, George W. Bush obviously nominated Harriet Miers without consulting with Specter. So, you fail.
Gosh...I just read the second part of your post, Seven: "the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman is not ever going to criticize a nominee selected by a president from his own party."
Are you trying to be ironic? Maybe it's all over my head.
Bob -- My God! You are right. I stand corrected.
As an aside, I have always suspected that the Miers nomination was a brilliant ploy to get Alito in without a fight. Nominate someone with no experience. Get leftists arguing that it's all about experience. Withdraw Miers. Nominate Alito. Game over.
However, I could never prove such a fantastic thing and the facts show only that I am totally wrong. Please forgive me for making such commonsensical arguments.
Seven, you blew it. You had me with a four-flush eight-high, and I threw away three jacks with my irony suggestion. Darn. You blew it. You coulda walked away.
Or are you still being ironic?
No, Bob. I looked into it. Specter was in no way fully behind the Miers nomination. I am wrong on the facts as they are knowable. Period.
I do stand firm on my conclusion that Santorum and Specter are idiots, though.
Seven,
"Both of these people -- Specter and Santorum -- are therefore full of shit and Pennsylvania is obviously full of idiots if these politicians are the ones they send to Washington."
What if they're just trying to keep up with Delaware?
I am supporting Scott Brown in the Mass Senate Race.
I wish there were more Republicans like Scott Brown.
Also, he is definitely hot.
Him and that senator from New York-Gillebrand, doing it would be very hot. I am ok if they do it while using contraception.
tits.
A good rule for anyone who made the mistake of supporting Arlen Specter at one time or another is to say as little about it as possible.
Gee, it's a good job that Specter was never involved in a who-said-what clash. Oh. Right. Oops.
Well, Specter has been so consistent over the years, how could anyone not think he would not go back on what he said this time?
Andy R. said...
If I were designing a primary to make all the Republican candidates look as bad as possible to weaken them and the Republican party as much as possible before they had to face Obama, what is going on right now with the Republican primary is exactly what I would design.
Hatman's idea of intelligent design.
Nobody tell him Rasmussen has both Milton and Santorum within 2 of GodZero.
Seven, I salute your blatant honesty here.
RE: Specter and Santorum, I disagree. Specter is a smart guy. He's like Nixon: smart and good at maintaining power at all costs, until his methods were his undoing.
Santorum is pretty smart, too-- smart enough to know that his sincerity is almost all that's keeping him afloat now. Most people have little idea what he really stands for: witness the stupid knee-jerk stuff Love posted elsewhere here. Santorum might just be clever enough to grab the nomination in the end.
I'd support Santorum more if he said if elected, he'd allow anybody who wants to to kick Arlen square in the nuts.
Nominate someone with no experience. Get leftists arguing that it's all about experience.
Which makes Obama all the more baffling...
Which lying former Senator to believe?
I thought Spectre was defeated in Never Say Never?
Nobody tell him Rasmussen has both Milton and Santorum within 2 of GodZero.
So does Gallup.
In the article Ann linked Spectre also says the following:
Specter also scoffed at the notion that Santorum's backing helped him turn aside the primary challenge from then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). (Toomey again ran for and this time won Specter's seat in 2010, when Specter switched parties but lost the Democratic nomination.)
"His support was hardly determinative, hardly that important," Specter said, echoing comments he made after his 2004 win. He noted that his campaign ran ads featuring Bush's endorsement rather than Santorum's. Bush's “support was a lot more important," he said.
But Arlen Spectre’s 2004 campaign manager has a different take:
According to Arlen Specter’s 2004 campaign manager, Rick Santorum gave Specter more than an endorsement that year — he happily shared his political organization.
“The Santorum political machine in Pennsylvania, from top to bottom, was incredibly helpful to Senator Specter in that campaign at every level, from things large to things small,” says Christopher Nicholas, a veteran GOP consultant and longtime Specter adviser. “I’ve never been in a campaign where another elected official was so helpful.”
“Little things, they helped us with events; big things, they did a TV ad for us,” says Nicholas, who steered Specter’s 2004 and 2010 campaigns. “[Santorum] was there. Those two had each other’s backs. Jewish, Catholic; eastern, western; moderate, conservative. Specter helped Santorum with wings of the party that he needed help with and vice versa.”
Full disclosure: I’m a Mitt Romney supporter and I realize that Romney went after Santorum for his support of Specter. A lot of this criticism I think comes from Spectre’s later defection for which I don’t think it’s fair to hold Santorum or the other Republicans who supported him responsible. I do think it’s fair to criticize them for supporting Spectre over Toomey even if they did so in the mistaken believe that Toomey was likely to lose in the general election. Still once he won the primary and become the Republican endorsed candidate, it was a choice between someone who would vote the way you’d want 70 percent of the time versus a Democrat who was likely to vote your way 20 percent of the time and I think it speaks well of Santorum to lend the support he did to who he thought was the better candidate. Spectre’s defection and treatment of those who helped him speaks for itself.
Santorum's not my guy, and I don't necessarily accept his account, but it sounds about right; and nothing Seven speculated about calls it into question.
In other words, the commitment--if there was one--was not to torpedo conservative nominees, which could include what he might say in the pre-nomination consultation.
I don't agree with Santorum's calculus, but I readily believe he and other politicians would look at it as he described it. And he darn well should have sought some price for his endorsement. This isn't a bad one, but too low in my opinion.
Also, it explains Santorum's justification at the time: "He's with us on the votes that count."
Meanwhile, take note of what Specter said in the linked article. Not only does he call his friend a liar, he then goes on to say his endorsement was no big deal.
Santorum may be shading the truth, but Specter's a snake.
I think Santorum may be conflating two events.
Specter was up for the chairmanship of the Judiciary committee after he was elected in 2004, but he said some controversial things that almost scuttled his appointment to that post. As I recall, he did make some assurances about supporting conservative justices in order to get all the support he needed from Republican Senators - including Santorum.
I'm inclined to cut Santorum slack on this one.
For the record, I voted for Toomey in 2004 against Specter, who I saw as too moderate, but I was rather relieved at how Specter handled both the Roberts and Alito confirmation processes.
Oh come on. Please. Spector is a bottom-feeding waste of flesh.
He has his head so far up Andy R.'s pathetic ass it's ridiculous.
Spare us.
Ha! As Abigail Adams said to T Jefferson, "The serpent that you embraced [James Callendar] has bit you." (I quote from memory.)
My PA parents doted on Santorum. He met them personally. They are also ultra-conservative.
When Santorum endorsed Specter, the people on FreeRepublic (that my parents read) freaked completely out.
But my parents voted Specter over Toomey, because of their beloved Santorum. I was shocked and disheartened.
I am so not surprised this is coming back to haunt him.
But, honest Conservatives should get a grip. He endorsed someone. He didn't pass a law taking over our health care, or bankrupt our children, or apologize for burning books while watching our soldiers die. He just endorsed someone.
So, when it came down to what might be the deciding vote on Supreme Court nominees, Santorum chose electability (Specter) over conservative ideological purity (Toomey).
Sounds sensible to me.
What the heck? I thought Specter was a lawyer. Is he the worst liar ever?
Actually, I have no use for Santorum, but Specter's a malignant, pathological liar, so I'm inclined to believe Santorum on this one. Also, it's the interpretation of events which actually makes sense, whereas Specter's version only makes sense within the effects-range of his own curdled ego.
what the Magic Bullet Man really means is that when he made the promise to Santorum, he didn't mean it.
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