Republicans & Conservatives Archives

Oh, for heaven’s sake! Where’s the right choice? Campaign, or Vote in the Senate? You wanted him to do something different! Get your story straight- either you hate him because he’s neglecting his campaign, or you hate him because he’s neglecting his job in the Senate.

If you’re not going to give him a tolerable choice, those of us who aren’t blinded by the dictates of partisan dogma, are going to assume that you’re just giving him a hard time for being the the presidential candidate, and we already have plenty of more substantive discussions to debate.

I don’t know about you but if I’m not doing my job I don’t get paid. Even the family leave act has limits.

If Kerry is serious and confident about being the next President of the United States he should resign his senate seat. Hey, doesn’t the governor get to appoint someone to take his place untill the next election?

Mitt Romney is the man. My first ever political interest was when he almost beat Teddy. So sad that he lost…. ahh, childhood memories.

If Kerry is serious and confident about being the next President of the United States he should resign his senate seat. Hey, doesn’t the governor get to appoint someone to take his place untill the next election?

Just like Bush resigned as Governor of Texas when he announced his candidacy for president?

And is this whole thing about the number of votes Kerry has missed during his candidacy really an argument you want to be making when the incumbent has spent so much time of his time as president just away on vacation? As of April 2004, it was estimated by CBS News and reprinted by the Washington Post that Bush had spent up to 40% of his time in office, approximately 500 days, on vacation either in his Crawford Texas Ranch, at the presidential retreat Camp David, or at the Bush Family Estate in Kennebunkport Maine. That doesn’t include time he’s spent in the past four years campaigning for himself or for other republican candidates.

The right must be really hard-up for scandals this election…

First the invented intern affair… now this? If these are the big guns, this election should be pleasant for us lefties.

I believe those were ‘working’ vacations Jarin. So maybe half of it counts as ‘vacation’.

They concocted the whole Iraq war at the Crawford Ranch, during one of those working vacations.

No President has ever had a lighter work load than Bush. Shrub never let his job interfer with a vacation, fishing or golf game and we’re all better for it. Because when he thinks and acts he kills innocent Iraqis and Americans, loses jobs, trashes the environment, and unleashes Corporate criminals on the middle class. This dyslexic dry drunk never reads, studies, or listens, except allegedly when he is with God. Our “true believer” vacationing king President uses the same incentives as the Blues Brothers and Osama bin laden.

With the rewrite of the Jeffersonian Parliamentary Rules by the Republicans for the express purpose of rendering opposition party effort ineffective, what is the point, except on rare occasions and in symbolic form, of Kerry or any Democrat - Independent to show up for a vote?

Debate is limited by the Republicans if allowed at all, votes are conducted almost impromptu leaving little time for planning, votes are often called just after printed Bills are disseminated leaving the opposition with little or no time to read the bills they are asked to vote on. Bills are proposed and amemndments are not allowed or are limited in scope by the opposition party. Really, what is the point? It is for all intents and purposes a one party government.

Unless a rare ammendment is permitted or a vote is anticipated to have more than a snowball’s chance in hell of being defeated or ammended, there is no consequence to Kerry showing up or not.

It is far more promising for the health of our government and this nation that Kerry pursue his efforts to break up this one party government, that at least will have some promise of implementing choice for the American people and force concensus government restoration.

I believe those were ‘working’ vacations Jarin. So maybe half of it counts as ‘vacation’.

All figures in office take “working vacations”, it is standard procedure for such positions. It hardly cuts the amount of actual vacation time in half, barring extraordinary circumstances which require immediate attention regardless of physical location. In contrast, Clinton took 152 vacation days over his two terms.

They concocted the whole Iraq war at the Crawford Ranch, during one of those working vacations.

The immediate wake of 9/11 and the plans made at the ranch at that time would be the extraordinary circumstances mentioned above and could hardly be seen as indicative of a normal day of the President at vacation on his Crawford Ranch.

However, even if I agreed with you that due to the nature of working vacations the president had only spent about 20% of his time in office actually on vacation (or one fifth) it would not negate my point that this is not an issue Bush’s supporters should be in a hurry to attack Kerry on.

Bush’s job is to run the executive branch of this country’s government and he has spent 20% of his time in office (at least) not doing that. Kerry’s job is to simply represent the wishes of the citizens of his state. He seems to believe that at present, the best way to do that is not by voting for each bill that comes to the senate floor but instead working to get Bush out of office. Since I hear no serious calls from his constituency to remove him from office, and the only ones asking for his resignation are his political opponents, I must conclude that he is correct in that decision. So the percentage of time you claim he “fails” in his duties, based on his absence for 113 unspecified votes that may not actually concern his constituency in any way, is really being spent working for them in another way and is hardly the same as time on vacation, or him “not doing his job”.

Seen that way, who has spent more time off the job? Bush, or Kerry? I’d say it’s Bush, and that is the crux of why this is a poor argument against Kerry.

I have a novel thesis….follow along:

A) Politicians seem to think its their “job” to spend taxpayer money

B) Our politicians waste enormous amounts of OUR money on pork issues while doing their “job”

C) Kerry is too busy campaigning to do his “job”

Ergo, lets get em ALL out on the campaign trail. I’ll bet even money that government works BETTER without the lot of em in Washington to mess things up.

On a serious note, what does it say that a politician can miss alost 90% of the votes and still maintain he is doing his job. If those votes are not important in the first place, then why take them.

Newsflash Eric: the GOP is playing politics. Kerry managed to show up. The GOP managed to delay the vote.

The Congressional Republicans are playing the wrong kinds of games with the man who has a good chance of gaining veto power over every law they write. He may be their equal now, but if Bush screws things up enough, the equations of power will be redrawn, and the people they are drawn by will remember how they’ve been treated. Don’t dish things, guys, that you’re not prepared to take.

Eric:

With Kerry holding a 58% to 33% lead over Bush in the latest Rasmussen poll of Massachusetts voters, it seems that his constituents don’t have the same problem that you have with Senator Kerry.

Now if Mitt’s new life’s work is going to be getting a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and he’s going to be jetting off to Washington to argue the issue when he should be in Massachusetts running the state, maybe he ought to consider resigning his post. Or am I just playing politics?

What are the chances that, before this campaign is over, the Republicans will actually attack Kerry on something that’s not trivial, trumped up, or ancient history?

And one other point: The Republicans’ stall tactics on the vote yesterday should put to rest any question about whether they set Kerry up with the vote on extending unemployment insurance. Politicking at its lowest. “Win at All Costs” should be the GOP’s motto this campaign.

well I cant say I am surprized that they pulled that stunt on him. Given the way the Senate Democrats have acted- not allowing qualified judges with the highest bar ratings to even come to a vote- it is not shocking that the other side with retaliate. I am with joe on this one- if our government wants to screw around and not make any laws, it will be all the better for us, because they will have less bills that will take away our economic freedom and civil liberties. Lets keep the Congress inactive :)

Stephen:

I’d agree that the Repubs are playing politics. But you should admit that Kerry is playing them first. By missing almost 90% of the votes, yet then finding time in his schedule to make sure he hits this “photo-op” vote, he is playing a most cynical game.

What his actions tell us is that most of the votes arent important enough for him to even show up, but when a vote that impacts his campaign (veterans affairs) comes around, whooooosh, in comes John Kerry for a visit to his JOB.

I applaud the Republicans for bringing this forcefully to the attention of the people. And also I applaud Bill Frist for saying plainly what he did. He admitted that he played a bit of a game…his goal was to ensure that Kerry’s game would be noticed.

Stephen,

Newsflash… not that Democrats would EVER do such a thing as play politics with the senate?

Kennedy should know, too, because he was partly responsible for causing Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole immense difficulties during the 1996 presidential campaign.

Dole returned to Congress as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee determined to move a slew of bills to the president’s desk and show voters that the master legislator was a doer, not a talker.

However, Kennedy and fellow Democrats decided they would set the Senate’s agenda, forcing Dole to grapple with issues he would rather not talk about or vote on, such as increasing the minimum wage.

Eventually, Dole resigned from the Senate and focused on his quest for the presidency full-time, without legislative battles drawing him back to Washington. -philly.com

Besides which Democrats have already burned any kind of bi-partisan bridge there ever was in Congress. The no holds barred opposition to any Bush judicial nominee is unprecedented.

I read somewhere that Bush’s normal daily routine consists of starting work at 8:00, during the day fitting in a 2-hour lunch and a 1-hour exercise break, and typically ending the day at 4:00. Rarely does he attend more than 15 minutes of any meetings.

Of course, this is when he’s not campaigning. Nowadays he is clearly spending a great deal of his time on the road campaigning for re-election, probably every bit as much as John Kerry.

Bush has two distinct advantages over Kerry regarding his workload. First, while Kerry has a job that can be measured with a simple count of roll call votes (and a boss who can manipulate the voting schedule at will), Bush’s job commitment as cheif executive is much harder to quantify since he (presumably) sets the agenda himself. Second, the press already knows that Bush doesn’t put in more than four or five hours of work per day (or more than three days of work per week) so they don’t feel any real need to make an issue over old news. (“Bush doesn’t work very hard? Tell me something I don’t already know!”) Again, Bush passes muster due to low expectations.

My feeling is that both Kerry and Bush and every other working politician who has ever lived and breathed has had this exact same problem, so calling attention to one side over the other is just dumb and hypocritical.

As a person who has put in 80+ hours of solid work every week for the past 10 years, I actually have a degree of respect for the concept that someone can lead the free world and still have time for watching football games on TV, getting plenty of sleep every night, and working out twice a day. Well, okay, maybe it’s not really ‘respect’. More like jealousy.

-Cf

Christopher:

You put in seven 11 hour days every week? Or is it six thirteen hour days? Five 16 hour days??

And you still have time to answer blogs on line. You are amazing. I’d suggest you find a line of work that doesnt require those kind of hours…what is it that you do that takes so much of your time? Here is hope that you get to spend more time with your family or with yourself away from work.

Besides which Democrats have already burned any kind of bi-partisan bridge there ever was in Congress. The no holds barred opposition to any Bush judicial nominee is unprecedented.

Eric, your partisan blindness never ceases to amaze me. During the eight years of Clinton’s watch, 63 Clinton judicial nominees were blocked, thus setting his approval success rate at 83%. Thus far, for W. Bush, only 6 apointees have been blocked while 168 have passed. That tallies to a 97% approval success rate for Team Bush II. If the Democrats were maintaining the same rate as Republicans they would have blocked 23 nominees by now. (from AZplace, and the numbers might be a little old)

Blaming all partisan rancor on your opponent despite the facts only shows how strong your rancor is.

joe, perhaps Christopher has access at work? More and more workplaces are starting to get this newfangled internet thingy, after all.

LawnBoy - and Clinton even had two years with a friendly Congress!

> six thirteen hour days?

Something like that, yes. Some days will be 20 hours while others may be only 8. I work all night long maybe once per month.

It must be the traditional values instilled in me by my liberal upbringing: an entrepreneurial spirit, and good old fashioned American hard work. :)

> Here is hope that you get to spend more time
> with your family or with yourself away from
> work.

Thank you for that. Now that I am entering my mid-thirties I will have to endeavor to work less and spend more time with my family and friends. This is why I have a spark of admiration for President Bush - here’s a guy who can lead the country without really spending a lot of time or energy doing so. I wish I could run my own company that way!

-Cf

Lawnboy, the Republicans were in the MAJORITY in the Senate- as the majority, they control the judiciary committee. The Democrats are in a minority in the Senate and are using questionable (at best) tactics against judges they consider unfavorable. The Democrats are picking and choosing candidates they chose to block based not upon their judicial fitness, but based upon political considerations (see Estrada’s case, which I have talked about several times here).

I went to see the Senate debates about this issue in person, and the reasoning the democrats use to justify their fillibuster is pathetic. My favorite moment is when the Democrats started complaining that the Republicans were wasting the Senate’s time by talking about the nominees, and how there were so many more important matters to attend to, like jobs. At which point a Republican made a motion that no more time would be wasted and the nominees would be allowed to come up for a yes or no vote. Hilariously, the democrats opposed this motion- showing what hypocrites they are.

Of course, if John Kerry wins and then gets a majority of the Senate, Republicans will turn around and use this very same strategy on the most interesting democratic judicial nominees. And I can promise you that we will hear these same people crying about “the republicans destroying the democratic process” that are currently supporting these ridiculous filibusters. And the republicans will be using the same arguments that the democrats are using now.

But that doesnt make it all “even” because the real victim is the indepedence of our judiciary and the destruction of any chance of a person that isnt smart enough to keep his mouth shut about every important issue of the day from ever getting to the federal bench. We will have a federal bench of all justice o’connors- how sad.

Misha,

So the tactics are different. So what? The strategy is the same - to deny nominees that one deems unacceptable.

I understand getting frustrated over not getting nominees through - I was always frustrated with Jesse Helms blocking ambassadors he didn’t like. He often used his power as committee chair to keep nominees from floor votes. Is it a different tactic than the Democrats are using? Yep! Does it matter that the tactics are different when the end result is the same? Not really.

Eric complained about no holds barred opposition to any Bush judicial nominee, when over 95% are accepted without a fight. We fight over a small minority of the appointees, but that’s not the impression Eric gives.

There are issues here that deserve legitimate debate, but that’s not what Eric did.

Of course, if John Kerry wins and then gets a majority of the Senate, Republicans will turn around and use this very same strategy on the most interesting democratic judicial nominees. And I can promise you that we will hear these same people crying about “the republicans destroying the democratic process” that are currently supporting these ridiculous filibusters. And the republicans will be using the same arguments that the democrats are using now.

I agree completely. Both parties adopt the other’s whines and justifications when the tables get turned.

I am glad you agree with that last statement Lawnboy. I am not a partisan- I am hardly a friend of this administration. I am someone who wants to be a judge some day, and that is why the Democrats’ actions offend me so much. I hope when I want to come up for the federal bench, you will stand up and argue that I deserve at least an up or down vote, even if you would vote against me.

Misha:

Being a Judge on the fast track is about kissing the ass of State Bar Associations. Their agenda is money-money-money; politics, law, facts and logic provide excellent cover for power grabbing but are secondary to the money. It doesn’t really matter what your politics are (unless you reach the two highest Federal levels). A succeessful Judge in: Family Law throws every Father out of the house without cause; Tort Law, approve every case, then prolong it; Criminal law, keep every litigation path open, until the defendents assets are expended, then bring the case to a rapid conclusion; Patent Law, ask lots of questions…. YOUR PRIMARY JOB IS TO MAXIMIZE ATTORNEY INCOME. If you do this they will love you and give you high ratings, regardless the quality of your mind!

Misha:

I’m not sure, but from reading Bayviking’s retort, he/she sounds a tad bit bitter and cynical about life. The whole Republican things bothers him/her especially.

Here’s hoping you become a judge somewhere. While we disagree a bit politically, I bet we have lots in common, and if we chatted, could find much more common ground.

Hey Joe:

Life is great. My cynicism is reserved for lawyers, politicians and idealogues. Republocrates represent both parties, not just Republicans. #43 is a special case often disconnected from valid Republican policies. 30 years of stagflation cannot be pinned on Bush or the Republicans. Don’t confuse cynicism and realism. But real corruption is a fact, in spite of breeding cynical attitudes. Fact is OJ got 11 months of Court time, because he had $15 million to spend. Shortly after, a poor fan club manager who killed her favorite singer in Texas was convicted in three short days. 11 poor men were released from death row in Illinois because the legal system is so broken. It is broken because lawyers drive the system. Judges ought to be running the institution, but they rarely do.

It was a bone headed move. They should have let him vote and then said “oh now you’re voting, after we started complaining” Instead, they reschedule the damn thing, and have now made it an issue of power politics, where Kerry wasn’t neglecting his duty, but was in fact prevented from it. Also, the contradiction of this “damned if you do, damned if you don’t ” dilemma works against the legitimacy of the complaint, making it clear that whatever Kerry does, they will attack it, using means with or without substance to do so.

I would venture also that the parliamentary techniques that the Democrats used to hold up the few candidates and bills that they did are well within the justified tools of a party out of power. That’s why those things are allowed in the first place, and why it takes a supermajority of 60 percent to vote down a filibuster. If you’re not the party in power, you use procedural means to get what your constituents expect of you. The number of Clinton’s nominations held up were in the triple or double digits if I remember. Bush has only had to deal with the mind numbing tragedy of having a handful held up.

Really, I thought the Republicans were smarter than this. Power wielded with a heavy hand is power resisted. Few political movements in recent decades have been as heavy-handed. And it’s backfired repeatedly. How else does Clinton get elected and re-elected during the rise of the American Right?

Really, I thought the Republicans were smarter than this. Power wielded with a heavy hand is power resisted. Few political movements in recent decades have been as heavy-handed. And it’s backfired repeatedly. How else does Clinton get elected and re-elected during the rise of the American Right?

Stephen, the left doesn’t play nice. Democrats controlled congress for 40 years, they set the agenda, they made the rules, and they didn’t give Republicans much to do but either go along or go to hell. All the Republicans I know say that our Republican Representatives are too soft and don’t show enough backbone. That they don’t play enough hardball!

There’s no heavy hand here. This isn’t Kerry getting railroaded or anything. He was inconvenienced. I’m sure in his mind that is huge. I’m sure the secret service agent that ‘got in front of him’ while he was trying to ski learned not to ‘inconvenience’ Kerry. But hey, life is too short for that kind of bitterness.

First, It’s been my observation that moderation tends to last longer than radicalism. Radicalism is a high energy position to take, and not always realistic enough to ensure competent performance of the job.

Second, I’d say that the Republican have had little trouble in getting some truly far-right legislation passed. As I recall it.

As far as the import of all of this goes, I think it relates to the contempt of their real duties, in favor of their partisan attempts to discredit Kerry. They are neglecting their jobs and playin games to defame his character to the voters. And they don’t have the legitimate excuse of being on the campaign trail for higher office to explain their negligence.