by Edward
John Cole on RedState tries valiantly to save the GOP’s right to resuscitate the recently departed talking point that all Bush’s nominees deserve an up or down vote in the Senate, but it’s the most faithless sort of wishful thinking and as such deserves debunking. In response to this post by Kos, using the GOP’s own words against them, Cole takes out his hair-splitter and tries to find a difference in how the GOP derailed Harriet’s turn before the Judiciary Committee:
When Republicans and conservatives speak of a desire for an up or down vote for judicial nominees, it is born out of the frustration of the recent past in which nominees were bottled up in committee in perpetuity, were never given hearings, were never given a vote, and simply had their nomination blocked through procedural maneuvering. In fairness, this occurred under both Republican and Democratic Presidents, and in Senates led by Republicans and Democrats.
But that is not what happened in the Miers case, and to assert otherwise is to engage in a flight of fancy. A desire for an up or down vote for judicial nominees is in no way anathema to the desire (and, I might add, right) to loudly voice one’s displeasure with a nominee.
Harriet Miers was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. She was given a date for confirmation hearings (they were to begin on November 7th), she had meetings with Senators, she was filling out questionnaires for the Judiciary Committee. She would, one could safely assume, have had a vote in the Judiciary Committee at the commencement of the confirmation hearings, and predicated on the outcome of that vote, a vote would have been held in the Senate at large.
In other words, she was going to get her ‘up or down vote.’ There were no calls to ‘blue slip’ her, there was no move to filibuster her (indeed, the Gang of 14 stated they would break any filibuster attempts), there were no attempts at procedural moves to block her nomination, and she was not going to be bottlenecked in committee forever.
What’s most laughable about this is this bit: "she was going to get her ‘up or down vote.’ " It’s laughable because web site’s had been set up and the call went far and wide that what the base wanted was not an up or down vote but her nomination to be withdrawn. In fact, on the Withdraw Miers website, they list the folks calling for the withdrawal and list the Senators who had expressed "Reservations," long before the hearings had offered Harriet a chance to answer her critics, including
Senator Rick Santorum
Senator Sam Brownback
Senator Trent Lott
Senator George Allen
Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Jeff Sessions
Senator David Vitter
Senator John Ensign
Senator John Thune
So who exactly is it in the GOP that still believes the President has the right to have his choice, his chosen nominee, receive an up or down vote? Cole would like you to believe they never stopped believing this was the proper process, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
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