Salon.com > Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind.

This is just a preview of the GOP’s Tea Party hell

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:30:00 +0000

What's most striking about the trauma the Tea Party inflicted on the Republican establishment in the Senate primary season that ended last week is how much worse it could have been.

Sure, the Tea Party base managed to dethrone two sitting senators, Utah's Robert Bennett and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, and to scare another senator, Arlen Specter, and a governor, Charlie Crist, out of the party. And it knocked off establishment favorites in a handful of key states, like Delaware and Colorado, while scaring the bejesus out of others, like New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte (who survived her primary by 1,600 votes).

But when it came to this year's primaries, the Tea Party's momentum was late-starting. It wasn't until Aug. 24, when Joe Miller stunned Lisa Murkowski in an upset absolutely no one saw coming, that its potential became clear. As soon as the result came in, the Tea Party Express, which had quietly dumped $600,000 into Miller's effort, turned its focus to Delaware, another state that was on no one's radar. That support, along with the media's sudden interest, transformed right-wing gadfly Christine O'Donnell into a player, and three weeks later she was declaring victory over Mike Castle, a nine-term congressman and fixture in Delaware politics.

GOP Sen. Lugar to support Kagan for Supreme Court

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:52:00 +0000

Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, breaking with the GOP on an election-year Supreme Court nomination, on Wednesday became the second in his party to announce he would vote to confirm Elena Kagan as a justice.

The Indiana Republican's position doesn't alter the positive outlook for Kagan, who was already on track to be confirmed early next month. Democrats have more than enough votes to push through her nomination, and Republican foes have shown little inclination -- despite pressure from conservative groups -- to block the move through a filibuster.

Lugar's announcement is the latest in what's expected to be a trickle of support among the Senate's band of GOP moderates for President Barack Obama's choice to succeed retired Justice John Paul Stevens.

In a statement, Lugar said he'd carefully followed Kagan's confirmation hearing testimony and the debate about her nomination, including recommendations from his constituents, and concluded that she is up to the job.

"I have concluded that Solicitor General Elena Kagan is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court and that she has demonstrated a comprehensive knowledge of court history and decisions," Lugar said.

Republican Sen. Lugar will vote for Sotomayor

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:45:00 +0000

Judge Sonia Sotomayor would almost certainly be confirmed even without any Republican votes in her favor. But it seems she'll have at least one anyway: On Friday morning, Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar became the first Republican to announce that he'll vote for her.

"Judge Sotomayor is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court and she has demonstrated a judicial temperament during her week-long nomination hearing,” Lugar said in a statement.

There's still the question of how many Republicans will end up voting for Sotomayor, but the fact that Lugar's announced this already seems to indicate he won't be the only one. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., had some tough questions for the nominee but hinted he might vote for her anyway, and there are some moderates, like Maine's Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who are likely candidates for additional votes.

Lugar: It’s time for “Plan B” in Iraq (again)

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:06:00 +0000

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins its turn with Gen. David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker this morning, Republican Sen. Richard Lugar is once again expressing his disapproval of the strategy they're pursuing in Iraq.

Lugar, the ranking Republican on the committee, equated the president and his generals to a farmer who works hard to plant his crops on a flood plain "without factoring in the prospect that the waters may rise." "The greatest risk for U.S. policy is not that we are incapable of making progress," Lugar said, "but that this progress may be largely beside the point given the divisions that now afflict Iraqi society ... In my judgment, some type of success in Iraq is possible, but as policymakers, we should acknowledge that we are facing extraordinarily narrow margins for achieving our goals."

That means, Lugar says, that it's time to "lay the groundwork" for "sustainable alternatives," to "prepare for the next phase of our involvement in Iraq, whether that is a partial withdrawal, a gradual redeployment or some other option."

And you can stop us now if you've heard this before.

McCain flees north toward home

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:08:00 +0000

John McCain is not going quietly into the night. "John's had six or eight near-death experiences and he's still here. He's a fighter," said Orson Swindle, McCain's friend and fellow Vietnam POW, who accompanied the beleaguered candidate in New Hampshire this weekend. McCain alluded to his years as an involuntary guest of the North Vietnamese when he declared at a well-attended town meeting at an American Legion hall here Saturday morning, "I've had tough times in my life and this is a day at the beach compared to some others."

McCain was responding to a former supporter who managed to artfully wedge into a single query the Arizona senator's twin vulnerabilities -- the public disarray in his campaign and the candidate's affinity with the unpopular George W. Bush on immigration and the Iraq war. In politics, it is never a good sign when sympathetic voters begin asking questions that include the phrase (admittedly lifted from TV talking heads) "the death throes of your campaign."

Surging toward disaster in Iraq

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:52:00 +0000

Earlier this week Sen. Richard Lugar, the senior Republican from Indiana, dismissed the U.S. "surge" in Iraq as unlikely to succeed. He condemned any illusions about staying the course. "We have overestimated what the military can achieve, we have set goals that are unrealistic, and we have inadequately factored in the broader regional consequences of our actions," Lugar said from the Senate floor.

His alarm has been illustrated by the difficulties the U.S. and Iraqi militaries faced in the recent offensive operation dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," aimed at subduing Baquba (pop. 300,000), the restive capital of Diyala province, located 31 miles northeast of Baghdad. American generals admitted that 80 percent of the guerrilla leadership there had slipped away, and that the Iraqi army lacked the equipment and training to hold areas taken in difficult hand-to-hand fighting. The U.S. military compounded its public-relations problem by implausibly branding virtually everyone it fought or killed in the Sunni-majority city as "al-Qaida."

A nuclear countdown, but dinner first

Mon, 16 May 2005 13:02:00 +0000

The Republicans have made all sorts of false statements during the debate over the propriety of filibustering judicial nominees, but this morning it's Harry Reid's turn to utter words that defy credulity. The Democratic Senate minority leader and a handful of other senators had dinner at Bill Frist's place Sunday evening, but Reid says there was no political talk over the duck al'orange.

If Reid is telling the truth, the Frist family dinner table is just about the only place in Washington where people aren't counting votes and reading tea leaves about the nuclear option. Frist said Friday that he'll call for votes this week on two long-stalled nominees, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, setting the stage for a Democratic filibuster and the Republicans' nuclear option in response. But will a compromise come first? That's looking at least a little more likely -- not so much because Frist is in the compromising mood, but because he may not have any choice.

Who’s playing politics?

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 21:36:00 +0000

In defense of John Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the White House is once again exploring the boundaries of "reality-based" perception. The Bush administration and its allies are pretending that opposition to Bolton is strictly partisan and political. Yet what must be clear to anyone observing this process is that Democrats alone could scarcely have stalled Bolton, let alone inflicted what may be fatal damage to his nomination.

Indeed, despite unanimous Democratic misgivings about Bolton's rigid ideology and undistinguished record, he would be on his way to Turtle Bay by now -- except for the serious doubt and strong dissent expressed by Republican legislators and diplomats about his conduct, competence, honesty and temperament.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan attributed the problems encountered by Bolton to "ugly" tactics by Democrats, whom he accused of "playing politics" on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a charge he repeated in his usual robotic style when reporters questioned his false narrative. "The accusations that are being made [against Bolton] are unsubstantiated," he insisted at the White House press briefing. "Again, Democrats continue to raise them." Then on Thursday morning, the president echoed his spokesman's complaint, demanding that the Senate "put aside politics and confirm John Bolton to the United Nations."

Breaking GOP ranks

Wed, 12 May 2004 19:01:00 +0000

A funny thing happened on Capitol Hill last week. In the days before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, no longer smirking with the certainty he had the only true answers to every question in the world, was hauled before the Senate Armed Services Committee to testify on the appalling revelations of torture and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, the Republican Senate leadership en masse broke ranks with President Bush and said so.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the committee, said on May 5 that Rumsfeld and the controversial deputies he has repeatedly backed to the hilt carry "ultimate responsibility for the actions of the men and women in uniform." This was a lot more than the pabulum and boilerplate feigning outrage that party loyalists always express when they are maneuvering to pump out a squid's ink stream to protect their embarrassed leaders. Warner followed up his words with tough and decisive action. He dragged a reluctant Rumsfeld to testify within two days before his committee.

Warner, not usually the most reckless or outspoken member of his party, was not alone in his outrage. "No member of the Senate had any clue" about the Abu Ghraib outrages, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the New York Times. "This is entirely unacceptable. I think it is a total washout."

Toppling Saddam

Wed, 18 Nov 1998 20:00:00 +0000

President Clinton is committed to backing Iraqi opposition forces toward eventually forming a new government in Baghdad, say Clinton administration officials. But they acknowledge that risky strategy could take years to bear fruit.

"You can't work this precipitously," says one White House official. "What we don't want is an ill-conceived, poorly prepared effort that will only cost innocent people their lives." Instead, he adds, the administration's long-term objective is "to build the opposition into a viable alternative to the current regime."

President Clinton on Sunday modified his own Iraq policy and moved closer to a Republican-led plan. Late last week, critics like Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., along with former Bush administration officials like Paul Wolfowitz, had urged the Clinton administration to adopt a long-run strategy toward ousting Saddam Hussein. On Sunday Clinton said that while the United States will continue its policy of containing Saddam by working to eliminate his weapons of mass destruction, "over the long-term the best way to address that threat is through a government in Baghdad -- a new government -- that is committed to represent and respect its people, not repress them; that is committed to peace in the region."