More Conservative Bloviation on Specter

I'm finding this story absolutely remarkable, have you noticed? It's just astonishing to me watching this coordinated campaign of stupidity and lies being thrown at Specter. The latest is this letter from a group calling itself, ironically, "Frontiers of Freedom" and signed by a bunch of obscure right wing think tank bosses. Like the articles by the National Review editors, Robert Novak and Donald Wildmon, this one is just chock full of lies and distortions. Some of the loonier claims:

The nation's protest against Democrat obstruction of qualified nominees added to this year's huge voter turnout and reflected America's understanding of the importance of a fair judicial appointment process and the upholding of the Constitution itself.

This argument is a crock, to put it mildly. In fact, the entire argument from Republicans about alleged Democratic obstruction of Bush's judicial nominees is one big pack of lies. Let's look at recent history. After the Republicans took control of the Senate in 1994, they blocked Clinton's judicial nominees at an extraordinary rate. In Clinton's second term, they blocked a full 20% of his judicial nominees, the result of which was that the Federal bench had a vacancy rate of 9.9%. Since Bush took office, the Democrats have blocked only 3.4% of his nominees. Through March of this year, they had confirmed 171 of his nominees and blocked only 6, and the vacancy rate on the Federal bench had dropped to 4.4%.

The blockade of Clinton's judicial nominees was, ironically, led by Orrin Hatch and Trent Lott, the same people screaming about the "unprecedented" efforts of Democrats to stop a few controversial Bush nominees. Yet Frontiers of Freedom wants us to believe that the blockage of a few Bush nominees sparked "the nation's protest" that led to Bush's reelection. How about applying that logic consistently. Where was that protest vote in 2000 after 6 years of Republican blockades on Clinton's judges? Oh, that's right. We're pretending that didn't exist. Sorry, didn't mean to intrude on your fantasy-based community with any reality.

On Tuesday, November 2nd, the American people spoke harshly to activist judges as voters in eleven states overwhelmingly upheld marriage as solely between a man and a woman. These judges, allowed by judicial vacancies to run roughshod over the American people, will remain unchecked unless nominees move through the Senate.

Uh, yeah. Exactly who are all those "activist judges" who have ruled for gay marriage? Oh yeah, only the Massachusetts Supreme Court has done so, and that was based solely on the Massachusetts State Constitution. So the voters in 11 other states were striking a blow against activist judges in another state who have no jurisdiction whatsoever in their states? Yeah, that makes sense. And remember, the number of vacancies on the Federal court bench has dropped to less than half of what it was when Bush took office in 2001. Those damn facts just keep interrupting this little right wing fantasy.

To have a Senator, who already has a record of opposing the confirmation of nominees appointed by a Republican president, publicly and inappropriately cautioning the current President does not portend well for process integrity.

A record of opposing the confirmation of nominees appointed by a Republican president? Jesus, what cretins these people are. Specter supported every single nominee Bush sent up in his first term in office. When you add up the approximately 800 nominees sent up by Reagan, Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger, guess how many Specter opposed? The answer is.....TWO (at least that is all that I know of from my research, only Robert Bork and Jeff Sessions. If there are more, I'd be glad to revise my statement). This is a record of opposition? For crying out loud.

See, all this is one huge crock of shit. They're lying and distorting to cover up the fact that they oppose Specter for one reason and one reason only - he's pro-choice. And in the aftermath of the election, the hard right is moving rapidly to consolidate its power and purge the party leadership of any and all vestiges of moderation. It doesn't matter if they have to lie and distort to do it, the goal is power, and ethics be damned. Absolutely no dissent will be allowed, the "enemy within" must be destroyed at all costs. So if you support Republican court nominees 99.8% of the time, the other .2% constitutes, in the fevered delusions of these modern day Comstocks, a record of opposing Republican judges. And a record of rejecting judicial nominees less than 1/5th as often as they rejected Democratic judges magically becomes an unpredecented campaign of blockading nominees. Up is down, black is white, war is peace. Mr. Orwell, call your office.