The Sunday Morning Talk Shows - Review
By: Mark Kilmer Red State
We've a full plate this week, an real ego-explosion. Orrin Hatch said on FTN that he would support the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez, and Joe Biden snapped at guest host John Roberts regarding his question of Clarence Thomas.
Biden said that the Dems would filibuster Janice Rogers Brown, and Teddy Kennedy declared on TW that a nominees ideology was the most important thing to consider, and that this was President Reagan's fault for nomination Judge Bork. Lindsey Graham had earlier posited on FNS that ideology was off-limits, and that the Gang of 14's "extraordinary circumstances" did not include ideological matters.
Leahy and Specter on MTP told Teddy to tone down the rhetoric, and Teddy and Specter trashed Judge Bork on TW. Bork fended off that attack on LE.
Leahy said that O'Connor would be rejected by both sides today, and Kennedy said O'Connor would be accepted by everyone today. Leahy wants a racially balanced court, Feinstein wants a female nominee, and Chuck Schumer is more concerned with the Senate's rejection of President Washington's rejection of John Rutledge to replace John Jay in 1795.
SPECTER AND LEAHY ON MTP. With NBC's Andrea Mitchell in for Russert, she had Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter and his ranking Dem, Pat Leahy, as her first guests on Meet the Press. Mitchell wanted to know if President Bush would listen to the Democrats, and Specter replied that he thought it would be "genuine consultation," listing himself, Leahy, Harry Reid, and Bill Frist as the consultants.
Mitchell played a clip of Teddy Kennedy repeating his old Judge Bork speech about rolling back rights and separating lunch counters. Specter responded: "It would be very useful to the country if the rhetoric would be turned down." He suggested that Kennedy was "laying down a marker… picking a fight."
For his part, Leahy allowed that he had "a great deal of respect for Ted," but "I agree with Arlen." Leahy wants both sides to "calm down," and he speculated that Sandra Day O'Connor, were she nominated today, would be attacked by the left as too conservative and the right as too liberal. (Is this a bad thing?) He said he told the President to "get somebody who will unite the country." (Interpret the law?) Leahy's view is that the Supreme Court is "totally there for checks and balances." (Interpreting the law?)
Andrea Mitchell posited that the President should select a centrist to replace O'Connor and then pick a more conservative nominee for the more conservative Rehnquist. Specter allowed that it was the President's call, but he agreed with Mitchell's philosophy. He suggested also that the President should consider the "gender factor."
Specter noted that though he voted against Judge Robert Bork's confirmation in 1987, he almost supported the judge after hearing a Gregory Peck commercial trashing him. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee admitted that his reasons for voting against a qualified judicial nominee were so flimsy as to be almost reversed by a television commercial.
In response to questioning from Mitchell, Leahy suggested that the Dems might filibuster an "extremist" nominee. He said that a justice who is confirmed with only 51 votes would not "send a good signal," questioning the legitimacy of a nominee who cannot get the support of 60 Senators.
Specter told Mitchell that though the decision on whether to uphold Roe v. Wade was up to the nominee, Roe is settled law and won't be touched. He said that there were certain things one should not ask nominees, and Mitchell brought up Specter's book, Passion for Truth, in which Specter said that nominees should be asked how they would decide certain cases. Specter responded by saying that the book was "still on sale." He muddled through an attempted reconciliation of the book and his more recent statements.
Specter said that he'd seen Chief Justice Rehnquist of late, and that he looks healthier than he did when he administered the oath of office for President Bush's second term. He thinks it important that the Chief have something to which to look forward to keep himself active. Leahy, for his part, suggested that the Chief quit and move into his Vermont home, as Vermont rejuvenates people.
DODD, HAGEL, HUNTER, IRAQ, AND MTP. Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel were Mitchell's next guests, along with Representative Duncan Hunter. The topic was Iraq.
Dodd declared that September 11 and the war in Iraq were "separate events." He said that Iraq "was not linked to terrorism" He added that he "supports that troops." Hagel agreed that Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism. He pointed out that there were no WMD; Iraq has widened to be about terrorism, he admitted, but this was President Bush's fault. Dodd agreed. Hagel declared that "stay the course is not a policy." Dodd agreed.
Hunter said, "If we don't change the world, the word's gonna change us." He said that our progress was steady and that the "end strategy" was handing the battle to the Iraqi military. We have to stay the course.
Mitchell played a tape of JF Kerry on NBC's Today show recently saying that Iraq was not about terrorism but it had widened to be about terrorism and this was the President's fault. (It's what we had just heard from Hagel.) Dodd agreed, and said that Saddam Hussein did not attack us, Osama bin Laden did. But we need more troops in Iraq.
(Note that Hagel is in the preliminary stages of running for the Presidential nomination of one party by mimicking the rhetoric of the failed candidate of the other party. The man needs to hire a decent strategist.)
MCCONNELL, FEINSTEIN, and GRAHAM ON FNS. Host Chris Wallace made clear that Mitch McConnell was his guest to represent the Republicans, Feinstein the Democrats, and Graham to represent the "Gang of 14."
Feinstein told Wallace that this nomination process would be different if it were not for confirming a replacement for the "swing vote."
Graham said that while picking a Supreme Court justice is important, "they come and go." He's more concerned about the "reputation of the Senate." McConnell agreed, stipulating that the process must be "respectful and dignified," and the nominee must receive an "up-or-down vote."
Feinstein assured that the Democrats would conduct themselves respectfully, but that she wants a "mainstream conservative" who "speaks for the bulk of the country." (NOTE: The bulk of the country has reelected President Bush.) Asked by Wallace to suggest nominees for the President, Di Fi said that this was "up to the President", it was not her place. Perhaps noticing that she had just contradicted her party's leadership, she added that the President should "consult with" Leahy and Reid.
Feinstein said that since she is the only woman on the Senate judiciary committee, she thinks the President should nominate a woman to replace Justice O'Connor.
Graham said that the President should not have to choose a centrist nominee, as ideological balance has "never been the standard." He noted that Rehnquist replaced Burger (as Chief) and Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall.
Feinstein told Wallace that the filibuster would be used only as a "last resort." Wallace mentioned Kennedy's rant, and McConnell said that if they filibuster a "non-extraordinary nominee," then "everything is on the table." (READ: rule emendation option.) Wallace asked Lindsey "Gang of 14" Graham about "extraordinary circumstances," and Graham explained that the term meant conduct problems, etc., and that an extraordinary circumstance was not about ideology. (By way of background, Graham said earlier this year that one of the President's contested judicial nominees had such a problem which would probably keep him from being confirmed. The best guess was that this was Judge Henry Saad.)
Lindsey "Gang of 14" Graham told Wallace that the Gang of 14 had not met regarding the Supreme Court vacancy. He added: "I'm against gangs," and offered that he had no tattoo.
Wallace talked about when the President would have a nominee, when the Senate would act, etc. Feinstein was adamant that she was going home for August, adding: "To set arbitrary timetables, at this point, would be a mistake." She talked about her four judiciary councils, who will examine every aspect of a nominee's life and report back to her.
ACTIVIST GUESTS ON FNS. Wallace next talked conservative C. Boyden Gray of the Committee for Justice and Nan Aron of the liberal Alliance for Justice. Gray said that he had been involved in no meetings about Alberto Gonzalez, and that he would support Gonzalez. Aron stipulated that she did not know a thing about Gonzalez.
BIDEN AND HATCH ON FTN. John Roberts, sub-host for Bob Schieffer on CBS's Face the Nation this morning, had Joe Biden and Orrin Hatch, both former chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in for questioning. Jan Crawford Greenburg was along for the questioning, and she did most of it. (It's her beat.)
On consultation, Hatch claimed that Clinton did not adopt his suggestions, that he probably would have voted for Bruce Babbit, and that the Constitution does not require consultation, which he called a "courtesy" of recent genesis.
Greenburg asked Biden what he meant when he stipulated that the President should nominate someone "in the mold" of Justice O'Connor. Biden replied that the term conservative had been redefined now to mean "an ideologue." He said that the President should nominate a mainstream conservative, "like [Ruth Bader?] Ginsberg or [Lewis?] Powell."
Biden noted that he used to teach Constitutional law [Widener University School of Law], so he may sometimes slip into pedantry when discussing the subject. He demanded that the President maintain the ideological balance on the Court.
Greenburg asked Hatch if the President should maintain the balance, and the Senator asked: "Who knows what a person will do" once on the Court? He called on the President to nominate "people of integrity and capacity." He said that everyone he has seen mentioned in the MSM has been a person of that nature.
Roberts said that "the right" attacked Alberto Gonzalez before the left did. Hatch responded that the attacks on Gonzalez were "pure bunk." He called Gonzalez a "very fine man," adding: "If he gets picked, I would support him."
Biden said that he would ask for Gonzalez's views on such things as the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, not how he would decide in specific cases. He explained that some conservatives argue that the takings clause prohibits localities from using zoning laws to keep porn shops out of residential neighborhoods. He retracted that argument without prompting a moment later.
Greenburg asked Biden if Roe v. Wade were a "defining issue" for him. His response: "No." Greenburg asked him how this could be, and Biden said he would ask about such things as the liberty clause, not engage a litmus test. He is "looking at the methodology" of a nominees decision-making.
Roberts went into gotcha mode. His eyes lit up as he asked Biden how he could reconcile this stance with his earlier behavior, asking Clarence Thomas pointed questions about abortion. Biden cut Roberts to pieces. He'd never asked Thomas about abortion, he explained, and Roberts was "the first person in America" to accuse him of such a thing. He has never asked any candidate such questions, he said.
Hatch added that Biden was fair during the Thomas hearings, and that all justices deserved the same up-or-down vote that Thomas and Bork received. Greenburg asked him if he thinks the Democrats would filibuster Thomas if he were nominated today, and Hatch suggested that the filibuster would hurt the Dem Party.
Biden said that "yes, there are" reasons to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. He said that Republicans had filibustered Abe Fortas and killed his nomination to be Chief Justice. Hatch clarified that the Fortas filibuster was bipartisan. (It was also not conducted to kill the nomination.)
Biden said that he "could see a circumstance" where the Dems would filibuster, and he said that would be the nomination of Edith Jones [5th circuit, Reagan], who is too extremist and divisive. Biden quickly corrected himself: he meant to say Judge Janice Rogers Brown. We can understand his reluctance to have the first black woman on the Supreme Court be a conservative, but there is no reason to respect him for it.
Roberts asked Biden if he would invoke the "extraordinary circumstances" clause from the Gang of 14 if Brown were nominated. Biden was not a party to that agreement, which is no more law than the findings of the 9-11 Commission.
KENNEDY AND SPECTER ON TW. George Stephanopoulos, on ABC's This Week, talked with Teddy Kennedy, Arlen Specter, Chuckie Schumer, and John Cornyn. Steph first alleged that conservatives demanded another Scalia or Thomas, while Democrats wanted another O'Connor.
Steph asked Kennedy was if he would heed Specter's request that he tone down his rhetoric, and the Senator commended President Bush for having nominated O'Conner back in '81. (I don't know if he meant this President Bush or his father, but neither man is President Reagan.)
Specter said that the nominee was the President's choice, and the President did not have to choose someone who fit Ted Kennedy's definitions. He commended the President for saying that he'd consult with Leahy and Reid, Frist and himself, before appointing. He chastised Kennedy for attacking before anyone was nominated.
Kennedy commended the President for reaching out to Democrats, adding that it was Constitutionally required that he do so. (A proposition earlier refuted by Orrin Hatch on FTN.) He rejected the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez to the Supreme Court because of the "torture memorandum" having "endangered our troops."
Specter said that he had suggested no names to the President, as he was not asked. "Don't ask, don't tell," he laughed.
Kennedy said that the President should nominate a uniter, not a divider.
Steph mentioned to Kennedy that he had ruled ideology out of the mix when defending Thurgood Marshall's nomination back in 1967. Kennedy said this had changed when he President Reagan nominated Judge Bork for purely ideological reasons having nothing to do with the man's qualifications. He trashed Bork for wanting to send us back to an era when yadda, yadda, yadda, and because of Bork's extremism, had his nomination been confirmed, "it would be an entirely different America."
Smelling blood, Specter jumped on. He shouted that Bork would have segregated the Senate galleries and was in possession of "extreme views." Both he and Kennedy seem to have a vested interest in seeing that Judge Bork is transformed into an eternal bogeyman, becoming more and more sinister with the passing of time.
Specter added that the "mainstream is very wide."
Steph asked Specter a question, Kennedy started to answer it, Specter joked that "the filibuster is starting already." Kennedy laughed that Specter should read his whole statement. Specter said that he had, as well as Teddy's press conference: "I came prepared, as I did for Bork."
SCHUMER, CORNYN, AND STEPH. Next on ABC's This Week, Steph talked to Senators John Cornyn and Chuckie Schumer. Schumer said that the number one thing to him was "the nominees views." Ideology, and Steph asked him about Ted Kennedy's lazy comment about the change in the confirmation process, with ideology now being a primary concern. (Kennedy, who had argued against ideology in 1967 for Thurgood Marshall, had argued that ideology became the major factor when President Reagan nominated Robert Bork for purely ideological reasons.)
Schumer further argued that ideology had always been the first concern, as when the Senate rejected then-President George Washington's nomination of John Rutledge to succeed Chief Justice John Jay in 1795 because of Rutledge's opposition to the Jay Treaty. He said that it was only for a few brief years in the Eisenhower Administration that ideology was not a factor, but he forgets Marshall's nomination in '67.
Cornyn argued that being nominated to the Supreme Court was different "than running for office," and that it is "wrong to prejudge" what a nominee might decide in the future. He allowed for asking a nominee about past cases.
Schumer leapt on this, stating that he wanted to ask about Roe. Steph offered that he also could ask: "Do you think marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman?"
Schumer declared that a Supreme Court nomination was the most important thing that they would consider as Senators. "With the flick of a pen, they could change people's lives." (No one asked him if this was how it should or was intended to be.)
Schumer said that "we have a higher obligation" than the interest groups, left and right, to consider high-mindedly the nominee. He said that he has suggested to the President that he assemble some Senators in a private meeting, where they can "roll up our sleeves" and come up with good nominees.
SPECTER AND LEAHY ON LE. Suzanne Malveaux was in for Blitzer on Late Edition, and she talked to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter and his ranking Dem, Pat Leahy. This is the same pair as guested on Meet the Press, although Russert wasn't there and Blitzer isn't here.
Specter said he enters "this confirmation without an expectation." He had memorized that line, as well as the bit about how he and Leahy are going to conduct professional hearings. He said that there are hundreds of speeches, opinions, and law review articles they have to read in preparation for the hearings. He said it is their "duty" to have a justice in place before the Supreme Court convenes in October.
Malveaux played the clip of Kennedy's tirade, recycled from the Robert Bork battle. Leahy takes the President "at his word," he said, that he "wants to consult." He wishes "everybody would relax a little bit and let the process play out."
He repeated the assertion that both the left and the right would have opposed Sandra Day O'Connor if she were nominated today, while they all agree "that she was a great justice." He said that "everybody says that President Reagan made a great decision" when he nominated O'Connor, and President Bush should also nominate a uniter not a divider.
Specter touted his record of voting for pro-life nominees, and he said that it was "important to concentrate on each of our functions." He said that Roe v. Wade is safe because Justice Kennedy was "very strongly pro-life," and he voted with the majority in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Leahy wants women, Hispanics, and African Americans on the Supreme Court, as it should "represent America. Not the extremists, but America." He hopes for someone "who will united us not divide us." He said that each Senator has all his options, but that the President should nominate someone like O'Connor, "whom all of us could support." (Specter had just stated that she would not be confirmed today.)
Specter accused Judge Robert Bork of having "original intent," and would have "segregated the Senate" into black on one side, whites on the other. Specter continued defending himself, even when Malveux said she was out of time. Her producers evidently gave her more time, which she promptly gave to Specter to continue defending himself. Specter said that scholars liked his questioning of Bork and of Anita Hill, and that "history will vindicate me."
JUDGE ROBERT BORK ON LE. Suzanne Malveaux next on Late Edition interviewed Judge Robert Bork. She asked him about Specter's allegation regarding Bork and segregating the Senate. Bork replied, "I know Specter, and the truth is not in him."
Bork said "we've been having a cultural war in America" because the Supreme Court has "become a political institution." He called it a "political prize" over which the two sides fight.
Malveaux played Teddy Kennedy on Robert Bork back in '87. Bork objected. She played Kennedy this morning -- Bork said, "oh, not again." Bork explained that Kennedy and Specter were still attacking him because they had to defend themselves. He said that if you stick to the original intent with the Constitution, you don't have to be a liberal or conservative.
He said that the President owed the whole country a nominee who would stick to the original intent of the Constitution. It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative, he said, as long as you stick to that. Malveaux countered that some conservative activists were saying that they would oppose a nominee who wasn't conservative enough, and Bork said that by "conservative," these groups meant those who would interpret the Constitution based on its original intent.
Malveaux asked him about moderates. Bork: "I don't know what a moderate is. It's a political term." He explained that the Court had become too politicized.
Whether you support or oppose abortion, "you ought to oppose Roe v. Wade," he explained. It's not in the constitution.
His advice to the nominee: "Brace yourself, now what's going to come, and don't let it bother you."
She asked him about the verb "to bork." He said that it was "in the dictionaries," and means "to attack someone unfairly." He added: "To have your name become a verb is to achieve a certain measure of immortality."
Malveaux told him that he was immortal.
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Steph had listed some potential nominees for Kennedy on TW -- Clement, Jones, Garza, Roberts -- but Kennedy wouldn't take the bait and address them individually. Specter wouldn't either. Cornyn and Schumer in the next segment wouldn't touch them.
An interesting morning. |
