--- Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "andie nachgeborenen"
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> > Ah the rhetoric-- yep, Douglas, Black, Goldberg,
> > Fortas, Marshall -- all
> > appointed by Democrats -- were such rightwingers.
>
> -Been a while since them guys were appointed. ANd no
> -Democratic Pres is likely to nominate their
> -equivalents today -
>
> It really depends on the votes in the Senate-- FDR
> and LBJ had large
> super-majorities in the Senate and we got decent
> nominees.
FDR's record was mixed. We got Black and Frank Murphy (too short a tenure), Douglas (good politics, bad judge), Frankfurter (good judge, bad politics), Stanley Reed (a nobody hack), James Byrnes (undistingished), Harlen Fiske Stone (good guy), and Wiley Rutledge (undistinguished). Truman, btw, gave us Harold Buron, Fren M. Vinson, Tom Clarke (Ramsey's dad and as AG the the genius beyond the loyalty oath requirement), and Sherman Minton -- losers all. ANd not because he was handicapped by the Congress -- he just liked these hacks.
Clinton could
> barely get anyone confirmed, so we got Breyer and
> Ginsburg.
He barely tried.
>
> So more Dem Senators, more progressive Supreme
> Court. And vise versa.
If the Dem Senators are progressive. Menwhile Ike gave
us Warren, Brennan, Potter Stewart, and Marshall
Harlan (who passed for a conservative in them days,
todayt he'd be well to the left to Breyer or
Ginsburg), as well as Charles Whitaker -- a mediocrity
>
> >What great
> > weapons does the Dem leadership have against
> > Senators Pryor, Nelson or
> > Lieberman?
>
> -Nathan, you're almost even to make me switch back
> to
> -no-lesser-evilism. How about: deny them the Party's
> -endorsement?
>
> That's decided under state primary rules, not the
> Democratic Leadership in
> DC. No power over it.
Did I say where they should be thrown out of the party?
>
> >Throw them out of the Party? (Labour did
> >it with Galloway.)
>
> Ah, thanks for pointing out why these discussions or
> insane. We don't have
> a parliamentary system; independent primaries
> control who is in the party
> and who is not.
Right, and so?
>
> The leadership can take away their seniority on
> committees, but again
> without control of the Senate, that doesn't amount
> to much of a threat.
>
> >Cut off their PAC money?
>
> Not controlled by the party leadership. Much more
> the other way around,
> unfortunately.
>
> >Find
> >candidadtes who support Dem principles tro endorse,
> >fund, and run agaianst them?
>
> The most attractive option and one that should be
> used more often. But hard
> to do in states where the incumbent Senator usually
> has more weapons to
> threaten challengers than the national leadership
> has to recruit them.
Worth a try. We really need LBJ back, though. I mean in the Senate. Even in a minority leadership position he'd had the guts and brilliance and the malice to punish malcontents so they wish they'd never been born.
>
> The myth here is that the Dem leadership controls
> all these things. The
> power over "the party" is defused over a whole range
> of freelance
> fundraisers, unions, direct mail specialists,
> consultants and grassroots
> activists.
Not a myth I purvey, Decentralization ought to make it easier, not harder, to get rid of DINOS like Lieberman.
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