Pennsylvania's Senators

From last week:

Santorum: (on the Senate floor, re: Jugdes)
MEAN, IMAGINE, THE RULE HAS BEEN IN PLACE FOR 214 YEARS THAT THIS IS THE WAY WE CONFIRM JUDGES. BROKEN BY THE OTHER SIDE TWO YEARS AGO, AND THE AUDACITY OF SOME MEMBERS TO STAND UP AND SAY, HOW DARE YOU BREAK THIS RULE. IT'S THE EQUIVALENT OF ADOLF HITLER IN 1942 "I'M IN PARIS. HOW DARE YOU INVADE ME. HOW DARE YOU BOMB MY CITY? IT'S MINE." THIS IS NO MORE THE RULE OF THE SENATE THAN IT WAS THE RULE OF THE SENATE BEFORE NOT TO FILIBUSTER. IT WAS AN UNDERSTANDING AND AGREEMENT, AND IT HAS BEEN ABUSED.


Specter: (on the Senate floor, re: the nuclear impass)
So much of what we're engaged in today is really a matter of saving face. This whole controversy has been escalated so far, so far, that neither side is prepared to back down. Neither side is willing to back down, and in the wings we have all of the press conferences on the senate steps, we have the groups meeting, we have the commercials on the air perhaps starting with Gregory Peck in 1987 on the Judge Bork nomination continued until the past weekend continued to this day, hard to turn on the television without finding a commercial. Last week my state, Pennsylvania, was inundated with comercials demanding that Senator Arlen Spector vote to save the Republic. Nobody is quite sure what it means to save the Republic the way the debate is going on, but these commercials are really in my opinion counter-productive, certainly not effective, and realistically viewed insulting. But if we take away the play from the groups, take away the play from the press conferences, take away the play from the all of the opionmakers out there, all the newspapers and the editorial writers, all the so-called groups.
One group is shouting to the Democrats "Fillibuster forever! Fillibuster forever!" Another group is shouting to the Republicans "Pull the trigger! Pull the trigger! So what if it is a nuclear detonation as long as our side wins." And what I think needs to be done is that the issue ought to be returned to the Senate. It ought to be returned to the 100 members of this body. If the leaders don't release their members to vote their conscience, … then a small group of Senators will take over the Senate...what we need to do is return the decision making power to this body.


Sorry for the capitals up top, but if atrios was good enough to transcribe it, then I won't fill it with typos.

Yea, verily Santorum is filled with a righteous anger. Watch the movie. Sanotorum is very much Bush's little puppet. Almost no one has sounded the privatize social security trumpet louder. He is the social conservative superman: enthusiastically dogmatic about everything from gay-hating to fillibuster busting. Note how very, very ironic it is for him to accuse Democrats of being fascist.

Specter is opposed to ending the filibuster, but notice how he asks for permission from the Senate leaders to free the members. To be fair in the "...." he reffers to a whip count on the judge vote, but he means freedom on the fillibuster vote too. I think he has somehow pledged to support First's vote in some Faustian bargain, and is trying to get out of it. Never-the-less, the Sentate is being bullied by the special-interests and by the executive. If six Republicans don't find their spines and swallow a bitter pill, the legislative branch will be weakened forever.