More on Arlen

Since Dan brought the topic up, I'll also give my two cents.

Right now the debate that I'm following is whether to "reward" Arlen Specter with the chairmanship of the Senate Judicial Committee. There's two sides to the argument pro and against. The editors at the National Review are on the con side. Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt and Jonathan Last are on the pro-side.

Really, I'm not sure which side of the issue I fall on. In order to try and clarify the issue, I'm going to answer the questions Hewitt posts on his blog:

Would stopping Specter make it more or less likely that he would vote for Bush nominees to move from the committee to the floor?
I don't think putting someone else in the committee chair would make things more difficult to move Bush nominees from the Judicial committee to the main Senate floor. The real question is whether the nominating process would be more favorable for a strict-constrictionist with or without Specter as the chair. I think that the nominee would face the same questions and difficulties with or without Specter at the helm.

Would stopping Specter make it more or less likely that Specter would vote to end filibusters on the floor?
This would be a problem because Republicans still don't have the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. They would need to draw moderate Democrats to support the Republican candidate, or at least support ending the obstructions put up by the Democratic leadership. This is where a happy Specter would be more influential than an unhappy Specter.

Would stopping Specter make it more or less likely that Specter would vote to confirm nominees once they had made it to the floor and once a filibuster had been broken?
If the last question is rendered moot for whatever reason, then the need for Specter's support becomes much more negligable since the confirmation vote will just need to get 50 votes (Cheney's got the tiebreaker), so the need for Specter's vote becomes less necessary.

What would the effect of blocking Specter have on the conduct of his colleagues from the GOP's "center-left" wing, especially Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine and Chafee of Rhode Island? Would blocking Specter increase the likelihood of their opposition to Bush nominees? Can opponents of Specter guarantee that they can have their cake and eat it to, or might these four (and perhaps Hagel of Nebraska) respond by returning fire on nominees?
This is the big enchilada. If people start pissing off the moderates in the party, it makes it very difficult to contain a sizable majority in the Senate. Of course, there are also moderate Democrats that could be of help, but the idea is to make sure that the appointees get through the process relatively unscathed.

Now, I'm initially inclined to oppose someone who was endorsed by Pennsylvania's unions. In fact, I was hoping that Specter would be defeated by whatever schmuck the Democrats ran against him in Pennsylvania. But he didn't and now President Bush has to dance with the one he brought to the dance.

The fact that Specter considers Roe v. Wade to be "involate" is a problem, since Roe v. Wade is the biggest piece of judicial activism in the court's history. There is no "right" to an abortion. The Consitution is really clear on this:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Now that can be interpreted two ways. One, the states have the power to restrict or allow abortion as they see fit. The second is that this power is reserved to the people. The libertarian in me sees that people can do what they will with themselves. The pragmatist in me sees that abortion (as well as drug use and other libertarian causes) have a definite social effect, so the states are well within their bounds to regulate it.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that if Specter continues to take the view that the court can legislate from the bench in such cases as Roe v. Wade, and will oppose candidates who think otherwise, then he shouldn't hold such an important spot in the Senate.