December 21, 2004

A SPECTER IS HAUNTING ARLEN:

Two Opponents of Abortion Are Tapped for Senate Judiciary Panel:
Democrats Question Effect on Supreme Court Nominations (Charles Babington, December 21, 2004, Washington Post)

Senate Republican leaders yesterday appointed two of Congress's most outspoken antiabortion members to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is bracing for potentially bruising hearings on nominations to the Supreme Court.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Sen.-elect Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will join the panel's eight returning Republicans next month, assuming the Republican Conference follows tradition and approves the leadership's committee assignments for all 55 GOP senators. The breakdown of Judiciary will be 10 Republicans and eight Democrats. [...]

While Coburn and Brownback will be the committee's newest Republicans, their records suggest they may rank among the most outspoken on abortion.

Coburn, an obstetrician, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Last year, Brownback introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which would have required a woman seeking an abortion to be told that the fetus might feel pain and that it could be given an anesthetic.

Antiabortion groups hailed yesterday's appointments, while advocates of keeping abortion legal expressed dismay. "The color code for potential threats to the Constitution just went from orange to red," said Ralph G. Neas of People for the American Way. "It's hard to believe the Judiciary Committee could go any farther to the right, but it just did."

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said: "It appears the far right is massing troops on the border of Roe v. Wade."


For good and ill, the nationally televised nomination hearings for the Supreme Court will make Dr. Coburn one of the best known senators.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2004 8:53 AM
Comments

It will be interesting. He has been known to take some weird positions but how does he present himself? If he is a screaming maniac like Joe Scheidler, a Bruce Dern character like Randall Terry or a goggle-eyed little freak of nature like Gary Bauer, the Republicans will suffer. However, if he comes across as a measured, reasonable family doctor type who just has different opinions about things, the GOP will be just fine.

Posted by: Bart at December 21, 2004 10:39 AM

I've always been pro-choice, while sympathetic to the moral arguments against, but something struck me last night that might be of subtle significance.

I was noting the media thanking the the various media gods that this horrible murder unfolded in MIssouri just a week after Scott peterson wrapped up. God forbid there shouldn't be a murder case out there to be picked apart nightly.

Then it struck. TWO enourmously high-profile cases, right in a row, in which an unborn "fetus" plays a major role. One is killed and then prosecuted as a murder, the other is the heart of the case, survives, is named, and is now a citizen of the United States, with all rights therein. Both unborn.

I'm thinking NARAL and the like can't be too happy with the subtle but powerful message being sent in both cases.

Posted by: Andrew X at December 21, 2004 10:57 AM

"Subtle"?

Posted by: David Cohen at December 21, 2004 11:08 AM

I wonder how much the appointment of these two was due to the squawk raised over Specter, and is part of the deal to let him become Chaircritter?

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at December 21, 2004 12:16 PM

55% - 45% is my guess.

Posted by: Dave W. at December 21, 2004 3:15 PM

55% - 45% is my guess.

Posted by: Dave W. at December 21, 2004 3:16 PM

If people could understand what was going on at Judiciary Committee hearings, everyone would know that calling Biden thick as a brick is unfair to bricks. Instead, he's always being held up as an example of a smart Senator who should be President.

Posted by: David Cohen at December 21, 2004 6:49 PM

To David's point--What it Takes by Richard Ben Cramer is a must read on Biden

Posted by: oj at December 21, 2004 8:10 PM

oj,

Is it on Amazon? Cramer's books on Dole and DiMaggio are priceless.

Posted by: Bart at December 22, 2004 6:55 AM

Bart:

The Dole book was an excerpt from What it Takes, in which he does the same for Biden, Gephardt, Dukakis and Bush (though interestingly not for Gore who he found too uninteresting to cover fully).

Here's his great essay on Ted Williams:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/007795.html

Posted by: oj at December 22, 2004 8:10 AM
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