Conservative Opposition To Johnsen Ramps Up
With Congress back in session, and major liberal interest groups throwing throwing their weight behind her, is the conservative campaign to defeat Dawn Johnsen ramping up?
Some signs certainly point in that direction.
Yesterday, The Washington Times--one of the country's leading conservative newspapers--published an op-ed calling her a "radical" and urging Republicans (and, comically, Democrats) to filibuster the President's choice to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Also yesterday, McClatchy quoted Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) saying she faces a tough road ahead. "I think she's in real trouble," Voinovich said. "From what I'm picking up from consensus, she's got a problem."
And Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, has sent word out to her members to call their senators and urge them to filibuster Johnsen's confirmation. Some of those callers will enjoy friendly hearings. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has already vowed to block the nomination of David Hamilton, who Obama selected to fill a vacancy on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
As I reported earlier this week, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA)--a key holdout, who's been tacking to the right in the last few weeks--has yet to decide whether he'd support a filibuster, and leadership hasn't yet scheduled a debate and vote on her confirmation on the Senate floor.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Yep. For you and all your cronies, she will be a problem. Oh..and it's your problem
April 23, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unless Harry Reid capitulates again.
I really hope he tells the Repubs to put their money where their mouth is and make them filibuster. But he won't, because he's the weakest Senate Majority leader in recent memory.
April 23, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
They'll still have the votes to override if they do filibuster--regardless of what they're "picking up" from unnamed and uncounted sources.
Republicans are killing any chance they have of being taken seriously with all the phoney outrage so soon in Obama's term.
April 23, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
My greatest fear and expectation.
April 23, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but this is not Harry Reid's fault. There is no "forcing" a filibuster anymore. As eviscerated in the 1970s, the rule now places the burden on the majority to get to 60 votes, rather than on the minority to sustain 41% (used to be 34%) minority on the floor.
Thus, Harry Reid could certainly hold a filibuster. The problem is that the Republicans no longer even have to show up in order to sustain the filibuster.
Thus, the filibuster as popularized in Movies and TV dead. It no longer exists, although there is still a procedure by that name. It was gutted in the 70s. What, you didn't think it odd that we've had no "real" read-the-phonebook filibusters since the civil rights legislation in the 60's?
April 23, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"From what I'm picking up from consensus?" Are we to believe he really had to survey Republicans to discover they were oppose to anything Obama recommended?
April 23, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You need to understand that Republicans draw their legitimacy from fictional popular majorities. That's why "millions" of people are opposed to Obama's tax policies and turned out for tea parties. And why there is a "consensus" that Johnsen is in trouble.
April 23, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Wash. Times. You just prodded me to call my Senator in support of Ms. Johnson's nomination.
April 23, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess the Republicans never heard about the boy who cried wolf.
April 23, 2009 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yawn. So a couple of Republicans, including the lunatic Inhofe, oppose her? I'm scared.
As long as Obama stands by her, she's gonna pass. And Inhofe's opposition to Hamilton doesn't mean squat either, since Lugar and other Republicans already support him. Good luck with a filibuster.
Oh, did I mention that Republicans are also flaming hypocrites on this issue as well? I guess it goes without saying.
April 23, 2009 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
When will Voinovich, Washington Times, Fox News and the rest of the Republican haters, all who did not vote for President Obama by the way, realize that they have lost all creditability when it comes to any reasonable debate that will help to lift our country out of what it has gone through in the last 8 years. Lets remember that they have made it very clear what their one motive is; to see President Obama, his administration and the country fail. What they say or think hardly matters any more. President Obama has the majority of Americans (true Americans) behind him and that will not change. There is more of us who wish the country well than those who would see the country distroyed by hate.
April 23, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans--- truly the party of hate and No. The party that continues to move backwards to the darkness of the past and ultimately into oblivion. Hate can not prosper when there is so much love, hope and good will drowning it out. President Obama truly represents an example to the Country in how to move forward when all of your enemies are around you trying to hold you back. I learn from our President everyday. I never knew that one party could hate in lock step like the Republican party hates. That happened in Germany but I never thought it could happen here.
The one thing that is very clear, the Republicans(those in congress and their leaders) wish and hope that the country is attacked, falls into a deep depression and that we all lose our jobs--hard to believe but it is clear that this is what they want for this country. Treason!!!
April 23, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is yet another "tail wagging the dog" story out of Washington. Unless and until the cowardly Democrats in the Senate begin to use their power to harshly punish the Republicans, what incentive do Republicans have to stop running amok and fillibustering everything? The whole situation is absurd. For purely political reasons, the GOP brings the Senate to a virtual standstill and in the name of comity and "the spirit of bipartisanship" the Democrats act as though they are utterly helpless in countering the obstructionism of this small and despised right wing minority. It's pathetic.
April 23, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, it doesn't matter if some Republicans threaten filibusters on nominees when they don't have the votes.
They were making similar noise re Obama's pick for Ambassador to Iraq. How'd that work out?
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/senate-confirms-ambassador-to-iraq/
April 23, 2009 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Republican base--trailer dwellers, uneducated, lunatics, pack of wolves.
April 23, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry I just let some hate slip in--I need to be real careful about that.
April 23, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
seems like the truth to me.
so it cant be hate.
April 23, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why do they fear her? What harm can she do to the corporations? Because we know the Republicans only act if there is a concern for the corporate sector.
April 23, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting, maybe it's time for Harry the Meek to bring back the NUCLEAR (or as my Senators called it, the "Constitutional") Option -- let's get a new Gang of Fourteen - or 12 or whatever it takes and put the filibuster on the back burner where it belongs. In the current Senate Oligarchy, 40 senators representing less than 12% of the population can block anything. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Harry doesn't seem to know how to play poker and better than he knows how to lead.
http://brownback.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=238161&
NEWS RELEASE
May 24, 2005
BROWNBACK STATEMENT ON JUDICIAL NOMINEES
Hopeful all of President’s nominees will be guaranteed an up or down vote
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today made the following statement
expressing his concern with the agreement reached by 14 senators regarding President
Bush’s judicial nominees.
“Some progress was made yesterday, but I am not satisfied with this agreement,”
Brownback said. “For four years we have been working to get an up or down vote on
the president’s nominees—to have them approved by a majority of the Senate, as
required by the Constitution, not a super-majority as required by the Democrats. We
have showed every restraint in not rushing through this. Now that we have exhausted
all other options, it is time to move forward in the process.
“It’s important to note that the Constitutional option is still on the table. If one of the
president’s nominees is filibustered at any point in the future, I will support the Senate
leadership’s implementation of the Constitutional option.
“All of the president’s nominees—both now and in the future—deserve a fair up or
down vote, regardless of whether some members of the Senate feel they can be
filibustered based on whatever they define to be extraordinary circumstances.”
April 23, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why aren't we hearing Obama and Gibbs aggressively and righteously swat down this crap? Will Obama let Johnsen twist in the wind the way Clinton did when wingers red-baited Lani Guinier?
April 23, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why should they elevate the rantings of a bunch of right wing nut jobs? Johnsen is going to be confirmed and the repugs will look like feckless obstructionists, just like they did with Chris Hill.
April 23, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because they leave the aggressive self righteousness to the GOP gasbags.
April 23, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really liked her in "A boy and his dog", but she really got too full of herself doing "Miami Vice".
What??
April 23, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I think she's in real trouble,",....this should be a cartoon caption with a big Tsunami right behind him,....the Tsunami depicts all the crap of the last eight years that these Twats got us into.
April 23, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama can't find someone fascist enough that the Republicans are willing to support?
April 23, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just spoke with a Grassley staffer and he said Grassley sticks by his 2005 quote: “Filibusters are designed so that the minority can bring about compromise on legislation. But you can’t compromise a Presidential nomination. It’s yes or no. So filibusters on nominations are an abuse of our function under the Constitution to advise and consent.”
He voted against cloture on Chris Hill and he's going to filibuster Johnsen. Reporters and bloggers need to be hitting him hard with that quote.
April 23, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grassley is wrong. The compromise on a nomination, of course, is for the president to choose a candidate that is more acceptable to the opposition. That is (or rather, should be) the purpose of filibustering a nomination -- when the president names someone that the opposition considers extreme.
I, myself, would like for the Democrats to retain that option for the next time we have a fiercely partisan Republican in the White House, because believe me, there will be a next time.
Still, if Grassley feels that way, here's hoping he can convince his fellow Republicans that they should at least be consistent.
April 23, 2009 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Johnsen's nomination may well hinge on the handful of senators who could be broadly characterized as pro-choice and pro-torture.
Joe Lieberman, for instance, wouldn't much care about her opinions on abortion. But will he find her opposition to John Yoo's memos beyond the pale?
If it looks dicey, look for the Rahminator to give her the Rob Malley treatment.
April 23, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Better comparison, now that I think about it... the Chas Freeman treatment.
April 23, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see... she's against bogus constitutional arguments, against executive power despotism, against secrecy-to-avoid-embarassment.... She may not be qualified for a Bush government job but is eminently qualified to work for the United States of America!
April 23, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly! This political thing is so political. Take that away & she is just right. What the right pretends to fear & oppose we should most likely embrace.
April 23, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
To my mind she was the best hire of all. I like this time to go "nuclear" if they try to filibuster. Screw these pissants, their complaint is based on ideology, something they wet their diapers about with chimp.
April 23, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
DOA, this uppity bunch is not likely to let her infiltrate the ranks of power. She is a base threat because she tows the line of constitutional law. Influence is not her bag.
Hope I'm wrong.
April 23, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
{cough} Um -- it's toe the line.
April 23, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink