Opinion: Arlen and Al

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The prospect of a Senate “no-confidence” vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has some commentators wondering if the United States is inching toward a European-style parliamentary system. But before Europhiliacs get carried away, they should ponder the speculation by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) that Gonzales might resign before his incredible shrinking attorney generalship is formalized on the Senate floor.

Specter, who has calibrated his disaffection with Gonzales, may be offering the embattled attorney general (the “embattled” now seems like part of his job title) a relatively face-saving way out: I’m a good man, but I won’t be the means by which the Senate smuggles parliamentary notions of checks and balances into the American political system.

Specter is not only an expert on constitutional law (if he says so himself). He’s also a shrewd tactician who, as a moderate Republican from a Democratic-leaning state, was triangulating long before anyone had heard of Bill Clinton.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Specter made it clear that he considered Roe v. Wade a “super-duper precedent.” Yet Specter—whose chairmanship was almost taken away from him by right-wing colleagues—ended up voting for both nominees.

But—get this—he offered a pro-choice spin on his Aye for Alito: “I think it is important for Judge Alito have supporters who favor a woman’s right to choose, so that he does not feel in any way beholden to or confirmed by people who have one idea on some of these questions.” For what it’s worth, neither Roberts nor Alito signed a recent concurring opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia suggesting that Roe should be reversed.

Hmm. Maybe someone so adept at juggling politics, policy and principle should be the next attorney general.