FoxNews May 26,2005
The source is
audio, this is my partial transcription.
Go to FoxNews for the video
Click on Politics on the right
Click on "Behind the Scenes" on the right
The video includes clips with DeWine and Specter. There is a short commercial you must watch first.
Senior Republican sources tell Fox, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and The Bush Whitehouse were worried enough about possibly losing the vote to end judicial filibusters that they dispatched two conservatives, SC Lindsey Graham and Ohio's Mike DeWine to cut the best possible deal.
The principle source of anxiety was Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter. Top GOP sources say it was unclear until the last minute how Specter would vote...
Dewine said uncertainty was very real.
DeWine:
"No one knows how the vote on the Constitutional Option would have come out. We might have won. We might have lost. If we lost it would have been devastating to the president."
Specter:
"I can do alot better with divergent interests if I maintain as close to a centrist position as possible and that means keeping quiet."
More...
I also found
this quote from Senator Specter
Tom Curry, MSNBC
May 24, 2005
Specter seemed to hint at that outcome as he told reporters that the separation of powers between the president and Congress "functions best when people are a little uncertain as to how it is going to work out."
In other words, if Bush knew his nominee needed 60, not merely 51, then he might choose a less conservative nominee.
The Senate and Bush "are now back to pre-1987 (before the defeat of conservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork). Everything is a little on tippy-toes as to how to proceed and that is the best way for our separation of powers," Specter said.
I knew there was something suspicious when I didn't see Specter in the compromise group.