[Shields:] They're in a rare Saturday night session of the United States Senate. There's Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana speaking before the Senate adjourns. After a closed-door meeting of Republicans on the Senate on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the I think that was the story the outgoing chairman announced this.
[Sen. Orrin Hatch , Utah:] Arlen Specter will be our next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
[Shields:] Senator Specter then read a statement making several commitments.
[Sen. Arlen Specter , Pennsylvania:] I have not and would not use a litmus test to deny confirmation to pro-life nominees. I have no reason to believe that I'll be unable to support any individual President Bush finds worthy of nomination. If a rule change is necessary to avoid filibusters, there are relevant recent precedents to secure rule changes with 51 votes.
[Shields:] Meanwhile, facing the possibility of a Texas grand jury indictment of majority leader Tom Delay, House Republicans repealed their own rule requiring immediate resignation if one of their leaders is indicted.
[Rep. Tom Delay , Majority Leader:] I understand the Democrat Party's adjustment to their national minority status is frustrating, but their crushing defeat in the elections earlier this month after two more years of Democrat obstruction and vicious personal attacks should show them that the American people are tired of the politics of personal destruction.
[Rep. Nancy Pelosi , Minority Leader:] We don't engage in campaigns of personal destruction. The reason that Mr. Delay was rebuked on a number of occasions by the Ethics Committee is because of his own behavior.
[Shields:] Bob, you heard that strong declaration of independence by Arlen Specter. But what does the hard treatment of Arlen Specter and the soft treatment of Tom Delay tell us about today's Republican Party?
[Novak:] It tells you that today's Republican Party is not as dumb as the old Republican Party. I think these were two very deft operations. First place, if they had denied the chairmanship to Specter, he would have he might have crossed the aisle. He'd certainly have been very troublesome this session. But they got him to give them almost everything. The night before the meeting, he had written out the statement. It wasn't adequate. And Majority Leader Specter I mean Majority Leader Frist got Senator Specter to stiffen it up. In the case of Tom Delay, he is a great asset. He won single- handedly five more seats in Texas. He is he runs the House very well. And the idea that some runaway district attorney in Austin is going to decide who the Republican leader of the House of Representatives is they said, No, we're not going to have that rule, particularly when the Democrats don't have a rule like that anyway.
[Shields:] But Al Hunt, the pitbulls of reform in the Republican have turned into timid little poodles, just and the lapdogs of Tom Delay.
[Hunt:] Well, Bob is Bob is Bob is half right. The Specter thing was ingenious. Conservatives ought to be ecstatic. They not only have...
[Shields:] Oh, I agree.
[Hunt:] They not only have a lapdog, they have a neutered lapdog as judiciary chairman. He is the most impotent chairman in the Senate. On Tom Delay proves one truism about the body politic, which we've known going back to the French revolution, if not before, and that is entrenched power is a narcotic because Tom Delay is a poster boy for unethical conduct. It's not just the Texas situation, he's been admonished by the Ethics Committee, bipartisan Ethics Committee, four times. That's a record. No one else in Congress... He is it's his top aide who's involved in this current sleazy scandal of shaking down the Indians, a scandal that may well lead back to Delay's office. If I could just finish, please? This is also a guy who is not just criticized by this is not a left-wing these include some conservative voices like "The Dallas Morning News," columnist...
[O'beirne:] Oh!
[Hunt:] ... David Brooks, who says, basically, that this guy is an ethical timebomb for Republicans. And he is.
[Novak:] That's the funniest thing I ever heard!
[Shields:] "The Manchester Union Leader," "The Indianapolis Star" I mean, it took the Democrats 40 years, Kate, to become this arrogant, this hubristic. How can Tom Delay and the Republicans do it in just 10?
[O'beirne:] Let me just make a quick comparison to the Democrats. Even the modified rule is far stronger than anything the Democrats have. They have no provision whatsoever to police their members with respect to anything that might happen indictments, fines or anything. Look, it's something House Republicans would rather not have had to do, but what they really don't want to have happen is a partisan state prosecutor runs as a Democrat, elected as a Democrat in Texas indict Tom Delay. This is a this is a fellow who indicted Kay Bailey Hutchinson after she won a special election, and the case was thrown out the very first day at trial because there was no grounds to have indicted her. They're not going to let this state prosecutor with a partisan record decide who's in their own leadership.
[Shields:] This is a district attorney, just for the record, Kate Twelve of whom have been Democrats.
[O'beirne:] Including Kay Bailey Hutchison...
[Novak:] All his factional enemies!
[O'beirne:] ... whose case was thrown out the first day of trial!
[Shields:] The attorney general of Texas...
[Novak:] All his factional enemies.
[Shields:] ... the speaker of the House. I mean, go ahead, Margaret.
[Novak:] The speaker of the House...
[Shields:] I mean, that's hardly partisan. Go ahead.
[Novak:] Well...
[Carlson:] Yes, 12 out of 15 is not partisan. And the Democrats do have a rule, which is that chairmen and subcommittee chairmen will be removed from their chairs if they are indicted, and now they've added the leaders. And so they now have a stricter rule than the Republicans have. And I want you to know that now murder and treason are still if you're indicted for murder or treason, the Republicans will still throw you out.
[Shields:] They will.
[Carlson:] And I think that is shows a great deal of ethical standards on their part. Listen, poor Arlen Specter. Nobody's he was nearly Borked. No one has apologized more since Senator Trent Lott wishing that Strom Thurmond had become president, so he's completely...
[Novak:] It was a very good operation.
[Carlson:] ... emasculated he's completely emasculated.
[Hunt:] It was.
[Carlson:] And he says there's no litmus test. Yes, there is a litmus test now. You have to be...
[Novak:] Look, can I can I...
[Carlson:] ... against Roe V Wade...
[Novak:] Can I just get in for one...
[Carlson:] No.
[Novak:] I just want to I just want to say that Al Al never likes to be inaccurate, and you didn't want to give the impression that a present aide...
[O'beirne:] No, it's a former aide.
[Novak:] ... a former aide...
[O'beirne:] Look, Al...
[Novak:] Right?
[O'beirne:] Look, Arlen Specter...
[Hunt:] That's what I said.
[Novak:] You didn't say former, you said an aide.
[O'beirne:] Arlen Specter...
[Hunt:] I'll give you a transcript.
[O'beirne:] Arlen Specter wasn't Borked because to Bork somebody means to lie about them. But the Democratic lame-duck congressman who filed the ethics complaint against Tom Delay, who has a huge target on his back by these partisans because he's so effective the Ethics Committee just admonished him. They said his ethics complaint misstated the facts and law, used inflammatory language because it was politically motivated in order to get the headlines, and it was improperly designed by left-wing outside groups. That's how the Ethics Committee was abused...
[Carlson:] Maybe there was a bit of...
[O'beirne:] ... and the Ethics Committee just said so...
[Carlson:] ... hyperbole Tom Delay...
[O'beirne:] ... by a Democratic congressman!
[Carlson:] He stole five seats, so there was a little hyperbole...
[Novak:] He didn't steal five...
[Carlson:] ... in the...
[Novak:] The American people you know, I think, Mark, you know realpolitik. You know how the real world...
[Shields:] Realpolitik?
[Carlson:] Oh!
[Novak:] Yes... You know how the real world works. And the idea is that Tom Delay is in the years I've been here, is one of the most effective political operators...
[O'beirne:] And that's his real crime!
[Novak:] ... I have seen. And that's...
[O'beirne:] That's his only crime!
[Novak:] And I'll tell you something else. I have never in my years seen a minority leader attack personally the ethics and morality of a majority leader, as Nancy Pelosi has. And she has declared war...
[Hunt:] You know, the one thing that Bob and Kate don't mention I don't blame you for not mentioning it is that this guy has been admonished four times... And nobody else in the history of the Congress...
[O'beirne:] Nobody else has had complaints like that brought against them!
[Hunt:] Just a second for unethical and sleazy...
[O'beirne:] No, no, no!
[Hunt:] ... behavior wait a second.
[O'beirne:] No!
[Hunt:] May I finish, please, Kate?
[O'beirne:] It wasn't!
[Hunt:] Kate, do you mind if I get a word in? It is by a bipartisan Republicans as well as Democrats. It's never happened...
[O'beirne:] He wasn't admonished...
[Hunt:] ... to anyone...
[O'beirne:] ... for sleazy behavior! That's just not true!
[Hunt:] You can make any kind of apologist you want to for him...
[O'beirne:] That's not true!
[Hunt:] ... but that's the record.
[O'beirne:] It's not true!
[Novak:] It's people like you, having decided long ago, before there was you even knew We're going to get Tom Delay. There there is a...
[O'beirne:] Right!
[Novak:] There is a coolly calculated plot to get rid of Tom Delay.
[Shields:] This is a man this is a man who used his power and abused his power to direct Homeland Security, protecting us from foreign threats, to trace down a legislator in Texas?
[Novak:] Oh!
[Shields:] I mean, that was a real...
[O'beirne:] The inspector general had an investigation and said that didn't happen!
[Shields:] ... Ethics Committee...
[Hunt:] Kate, you deal with...
[Shields:] ... reprimanded him for.
[Hunt:] ... half truths...
[Shields:] Next on CAPITAL GANG, President Bush and Bill Clinton making nice over each other.