Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Arlen Specter thanks Bush for helping him get reelected.

Then tells the President not to nominate any conservatives to the courts.



When Bush was asked about his mistakes in the 2nd debate. He should have cited helping Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey in the primaries. The GOP should scrap the stupid system that will put Specter as the head of the Judiciary Committee:



"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.



"The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster," Specter added, referring to Senate Democrats' success over the past four years in blocking the confirmation of many of Bush's conservative judicial picks. "... And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."
He then went on to insult the 9 sitting Supreme Court justices:



A former district attorney, Specter also bemoaned what he called the lack of any current justices comparable to legal heavyweights like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo and Thurgood Marshall, "who were giants of the Supreme Court."



"With all due respect to the (current) U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one," he said.



Though he refused to describe the political leanings of the high court, Specter said he "would characterize myself as moderate; I'm in the political swim. I would look for justices who would interpret the Constitution, as Cardozo has said, reflecting the values of the people."
After the President's big win on Tuesday, the success of the traditional marriage ballot measures, and "moral values" cited as the biggest issue in the election (surprisingly) conservative judges will be those whose own values reflect the "values of the people," and not idiots like Arlen Specter who repay huge favors with lip.