In an amazing moment in last night’s debate, Rick Santorum
suddenly found himself under attack by Mitt Romney — for seeing to
it that the Supreme Court had two conservative justices.
As usual, the moment was turned upside down by the
media.
In 2004, Santorum, then Pennsylvania’s junior Republican
Senator, famously supported Arlen Specter for re-nomination over
the conservative Pat Toomey. To anyone paying attention in the day,
it was crystal clear that Specter, if re-elected, would be the
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a longtime goal of the
one-time Philadelphia District Attorney. Toomey, a businessman,
would not only be a freshman if elected, he wouldn’t be sitting on
the Judiciary Committee.
The dilemma for Pennsylvania Republicans was clear. While
Specter had angered many with his treatment of Reagan nominee
Robert Bork, he had rallied in 1991 to a strong defense of Clarence
Thomas. In his typical prosecutorial style Specter had shredded
Anita Hill’s out-of-the blue accusations, grimly assessing her
testimony as “flat out perjury.” Seven years later, then-Senator
and now Vice President Joe Biden admitted to Specter (as Specter
recounts in his memoirs) that “It was clear to me from the way she
was answering the questions, she was lying.” In the end, his
accuser’s credibility in tatters thanks to Specter, Thomas was
confirmed. One year later, in 1992, Specter almost lost his
re-election bid at to a liberal feminist Democratic nominee because
of it.
As conservative Pennsylvania Republicans watched the
Specter-Toomey race unfold in the spring of 2004, there was a
decided knowledge of what lay just over the horizon. With a
re-elected George Bush, and Arlen Specter wielding the gavel of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, the expected vacancies on the Supreme
Court could in fact install younger conservative Justices who would
be able to join conservatives Thomas and Scalia on the bench. The
impact of a Court with a re-invigorated conservative wing was
incalculable. Santorum, at considerable risk to his own Senate seat
and after confronting Specter on the subject, endorsed his senior
colleague. Two years later, Santorum did pay the price. His famous
18-point loss came at the hands of not just angry
liberals but angry Toomey supporters seeking revenge.
But just as expected, those Court vacancies did appear.
The conservative pressure on the Bush White House was so intense
that when a second vacancy appeared before the first had even been
filled, Bush moved Associate Justice nominee John Roberts up to the
suddenly open Chief Justice spot — and then sought to fill the
vacant Sandra Day O’Connor seat with his untested White House
Counsel Harriet Miers. There was an abrupt, heated rebellion in the
ranks. Miers was withdrawn and the Third Circuit’s Samuel Alito
became the nominee.
Specter did as promised, skillfully wielding the gavel,
barking back at an aggressive Ted Kennedy — and getting both
Roberts and Alito confirmed. Where to this moment the two sit as a
solid core of the conservative majority on the Court.
It needs to be noted here that two years after Specter
almost lost his Senate seat for his support of Thomas in 1992, Mitt
Romney was running against Ted Kennedy for a seat in the Senate by
promising he would never go back to those dastardly Reagan-Bush
years. Years in which conservatives with names like Rehnquist and
Scalia were appointed to the Court. One can only wonder whether,
had there been a Senator Mitt Romney elected on that pledge
rebuking Reagan and Bush, Senator Romney would even have voted for
Roberts and Alito since his rebuke of Reagan and Bush is an
implicit rebuke of Reagan and Bush appointees Rehnquist, Scalia,
and Thomas.
Lost in the gotcha moment last night, in which Romney said
that Obamacare — the Son of Romneycare — was made possible by
Santorum’s support of Specter, was the unspoken fact of the Supreme
Court.
Quite apparently Romney believes the nomination and
confirmation of Roberts and Alito was worth putting at risk to
defeat Specter in 2004. Risking a Toomey defeat and a certain
absence of Specter in the chair leading the confirmation fights for
conservative Justices. One can talk all day long about Arlen
Specter’s liberalism or cynicism or whatever. But at the end of the
day, keeping one’s conservative eye on the ball meant getting two
conservatives on the Supreme Court.
In short, whether anyone wants to say it or not, Rick
Santorum played a key and much unappreciated role in getting that
job done.
The fact that Romney seems clueless to the point is only
one more indication that were he to be trusted himself with a
Supreme Court nomination — trouble.
