GOP Senator wants O’Connor to be Chief Justice

[JGrubbs]

Republican Senator wants O’Connor promoted; not retired:

A liberal Republican who owes his re-election victory last year to the President may be emerging as the greatest threat to the chief executive’s ability to name conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Speaking to a nationally-televised audience on July 10, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) helped to fuel a Democrat plan aimed at retaining Sandra Day O’Connor to replace soon-to-retire William Rehnquist as the Court’s Chief Justice.

Speaking to the CBS news program ‘Face the Nation,’ Specter promoted the idea of an O’Connor promotion by saying:

“I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O’Connor, ‘You could help the country now.’ .. She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so.”

Specter’s statements are clearly out of step with the often-repeated promise by President Bush to place conservative justices like Clarence Thomas and William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. For example, in an October 2000 television debate with Al Gore, Bush said, “I’ll put competent judges on the bench, people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and will not use the bench to write social policy. I don’t believe in liberal, activist judges. I believe in strict constructionists.”

Sandra Day O’Connor is anything but a strict constitutionalist. Her deviation from the Constitution is well-documented, including her support for decisions guaranteeing the legal “right” to same-sex sodomy and abortion. According to a WorldNetDaily report in October of 2003, O’Connor’s reliance on foreign law over the U.S. Constitution helped her win the “World Justice Award” from the Southern Center for International Studies.

According to the transcript of Specter’s comments found on the CBS News website, Senator Specter said Justice O’Connor was approached about the idea by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). He added that her response to the idea, as he was told, was “she was flattered [and] that she didn’t say no.”

Family Policy Network (FPN) President Joe Glover criticized Specter for trying to help fuel a promotion for O’Connor, saying the Senator should support the conservative nominees that the President has always promised he would appoint to the Supreme Court, saying:

“Arlen Specter is biting the very hand that fed him. His presumptuous statements are diametrically opposed to the President’s plan to nominate ’strict constitutionalists.’ His actions are a complete betrayal of the same President that saved Specter’s career in 2004.”

Despite major ideological differences between them, President Bush endorsed Specter in 2004 over a conservative primary challenger who nearly beat him. Bush’s support for Specter rankled many conservative Republicans, and may have been the reason the President lost Pennsylvania in his own re-election bid that same year.

Source: Family Policy Network

 

[ASLANSPAL]

First lady Laura Bush, on a trip to Africa, told NBC's "Today Show" that "I would really like for him to name another woman," a statement that caught the president a bit off guard.

"Listen, I get her advice all the time. I didn't realize she had put this advice in the press," Bush said.

Perhaps she is hinting she wants O'Connor back as
well as the Chief Justice. imho

 

[KenH]

Since we already have a chief justice that won't work. If and when Rehnquist resigns, there is no way that Bush could nominate O'Connor for chief justice without ripping the GOP apart.

 

[church mouse guy]

Exactly, Ken. People that I have been talking to are having a party because we are at last rid of O'Connor. Bush will also rip the GOP apart, Ken, if he puts up Alberto Gonzales, a so-called pro-abortion Republican.

 

[JGrubbs]

Will they "rip the GOP apart" when they nominate a pro-choice candidate like Giuliani or Rice for president in 2008? If so would Bush nominating a liberal like O'Connor or Gonzales be simply getting the party ready for 2008?

 

[fromtheright]

Ken is right. Part of the core of President Bush's support is from conservatives and evangelical conservatives concerned about the direction of the courts--and this country. Conservatives DON'T want O'Connor back, especially with the clearly conservative choices out there.

BTW, another reason I'm not wild about Gonzales is his torture memo. I believe strongly that there is nothing wrong with detaining these prisoners in Gitmo, that they are being treated appropriately, and that there is sound reason in international law for their detention, but Gonzalez's endorsement of treatment including that leading to shutdown or failure of internal organs is chilling.

 

[OldRegular]

Arlen Spector is a flaky liberal!

 

[raunhawk]

regardless of sex or race, the best person available should be nominated for supreme court decisions. If we as a country demand that our courts be mixed in correct "ratios" rather than filled with excellent jurists, than we have lost

 

[Ingo Breuer]

Here is what I wrote President Bush in an e-mail in response to Family Policy Network's alert on RINO Specter's comment. (RINO = Republican in Name Only)

president@whitehouse.gov

Roy Moore for Supreme Court

Dear Mr. President:

The US Supreme Court needs some Bible believers in office! Some people who know what America is all about. Not these liberals who want to get rid of America's distinct character and make us just as liberal as Europe. Settlers came to America to escape the European humanism, immorality, dead state religion, disrespect for the word of God, etc. I personally suggest that former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore be appointed to the US Supreme Court.

Dear Mr. President, your election victory of 2004 is credited to the votes of conservative Christians. The promise was that we reverse Roe vs. Wade and implement a Federal Marriage Amendment that outlaws gay marriages or civil unions. That's our goal. Let's accomplish it. We want America back! We don't want to repeat the mistake of the 80s when a so-called conservative President appointed pro-choice O'Connor with ease but didn't follow through with judge Robert Bork. A Bible-believer would not have appointed O'Connor but fought the battle for Bork till victory. We don't want a repeat of the Bork retreat. This time we will pull no punches. Unborn lives are at stake. 4000 precious children each day! Let's stop this Holocaust! Let's follow through all the way till we see a Supreme Court that is pleasing unto the Lord. America is not Europe. America confesses itself to Christian values. Europe doesn't. No foreign pressure is going to change us. The liberals' honeymoon is over now. I ask for a conservative Supreme Court nominee. I ask for Roy Moore!

Yours in Christ,

Ingo Breuer
719 Jefferson Avenue E.
Carthage, TN 37030
(615) 735-3009
http://www.solidrockfaith.com