Arlen Specter dead at 82. Pundits disagree about his real motives.

Sic Transit Senator Specter.

Senator Specter was a Republican to the very end, even after he switched parties and became a notional Democrat. Like his fellow faux-Democrat Joe Lieberman, who also changed horses at the end of his Senate career to salvage one last re-election, Senator Specter's trademark was pretending to hold moderate politics while selling out Democrats on critical votes, usually with a long Hamlet-esque speech right before he put the shiv in.

We here at p3 have had a lot of fun at Specter's expense over the years, every single bit of which he had coming and more, but in the interests of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, I will note that Slate.com's Dahlia Lithwick always held him in a certain regard because he was a long-time and determined advocate of bringing cameras into the Supreme Court.

The unforgiving minute: When a weasel complains about being treated like a weasel for being a weasel

Former Republican Senator (and, the moment it became expedient for his disgraceful career, Democratic Senator -- by then it hardly mattered otherwise) Arlen Specter feels bad that someone didn't give him the respect he thinks he deserves.

If the all-about-me Specter got the respect he deserved, he'd long ago have been stripped naked and chased with whips down all 13 miles of Broad Street. And if Obama really did flat-out disrespect him in cold blood, I'd feel a little more pride in him.

Minute's up.

The RNC on Obama's "'rock star' aura"

From an RNC fundraising email currently making the rounds:

Like an annoying tune you can't get out of your head, Barack Obama keeps using his ''rock star'' aura to campaign for Democrat candidates...and they keep on losing. So much for star power and presidential ''coat tails.''

First in Virginia and New Jersey, then Massachusetts and now Pennsylvania just this week, Barack Obama's endorsement has led to election flop after flop.

Okay, I know it's just a Republican "ask," so it probably was never designed to survive close scrutiny on the merits. But two things:

First, Obama's "rock star" aura -- and the rest of him -- were nowhere to be seen in the run-up to Specter's loss in Pennsylvania this week. He and Biden dodged Specter like they owed him money. The presidential endorsement that killed Specter wasn't Obama's; it was Bush's.

Second, is the RNC counting on low-information donors to miss the fact that, although Obama's candidate in Pennsylvania lost, it didn't mean a Republican won -- since it was a Democratic primary? (Probably. In fact, Sestak has a better chance of defeating Toomey than Specter did -- which is why the Democrats were stuck with him in the first place.)

There. Just had to get that out of my system.

(H/t to Doctor Beyond)

The unforgiving minute: Specter of defeat?

Oh please, let it be so:

CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer is now saying that he has it on good authority that the White House is privately bracing for Arlen Specter to lose tomorrow.

Two positives here:

1. The Senate can rid itself of one of its least-principled members (an arena where that's no piddling distinction).

2. The White House can get a sharp reminder to choose its friends more wisely.

Minute's up.

When a marriage of convenience stops being convenient

I never expected much of Arlen Specter as a Democrat, although in fairness he hasn't been as quickly or deeply treacherous after switching parties as I expected him to be.

A strong primary challenger from within your adopted party does concentrate the mind wonderfully.

And yet . . . and yet . . . and yet. Here's a story that Specter, a.k.a. Don Altobello, a.k.a. the plumed cave warbler, probably wishes he hadn't served up:

For three decades, Specter prided himself on being a coalition builder, relishing a self-appointed role as a liaison striving to find the moderate solutions to liberal and conservative extremes.

Now as a Democrat, that role has vanished. For that reason alone, Specter has questioned his storied party switch.

"Well, I probably shouldn't say this," he said over lunch last month. "But I have thought from time to time that I might have helped the country more if I'd stayed a Republican."

Kinsley's Law of Gaffes: It's not a gaffe when a politician accidentally says something that isn't true; it's a gaffe when he accidentally says something that is true.

(Will Bunch reduces Specter's poor-me-ism to rubble in about a paragraph, calling it a fantastical rewrite of history on many levels--and he's probably just being nice because he has the bad luck to have Specter for his senator.)

The reality is, as a Democrat, Specter gets far fewer invitations to play Hamlet in front of the TV news camera, and far fewer presidential muffin baskets from the White House. Watching the Blue Dogs get all that face time in the media during the health care reform battle last year, while he sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, it's not surprising he's been reconsidering his choices.

The unforgiving minute

America can sleep safer tonight, knowing that defenseless corporations have had their rights to free speech restored to them via the Citizens United ruling.

Why look--here comes some corporate free speech right now, in the Senate Anti-Trust subcommittee hearings on the Comcast merger with NBC-Universal:

You know what I'll bet Specter thinks is the most brilliant thing Comcast's executives have done? They've donated a whopping $108,580 to his 2010 re-election campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org. That only makes Comcast the second largest source of campaign cash for Specter, however. The biggest is the Philadelphia-based legal and lobbying powerhouse Blank Rome. You know who one of Blank Rome's lobbying clients is? Comcast Corp.

As the Roberts Court would say: Money talks.

Of course, this story would sting more if Specter had had any integrity to begin with.

Minute's up.

The unforgiving minute

Paraphrasing a classic one-liner about former Senator Al D'Amato and ethics, being called flagrant hypocrite by Arlen Specter is like being called ugly by a frog.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter called his fellow Democrat, Rep. Joe Sestak, a "flagrant hypocrite" and accused his rival of registering as a Democrat "just in time to run for Congress."

Sestak has said that he will challenge Specter, who has the backing of President Obama and party leaders, for the Democratic Senate nomination next year. Specter, a longtime Republican, switched his party registration to Democrat this year.

Minute's up.

My confession

Before National Review hack Ed Whalen has the chance to out my identity too, as he has now done for Publius at Obsidian Wings, I have elected to "come clean" and confirm that "nothstine" is my nom de blog, not my real name.

(Funny story: I had originally chosen the pen name "Goat's Wine," but my car was going into a tunnel and my cell connection was breaking up, so the phrase got garbled at the other end. "Goat's Wine" made at least a little sense, but--"nothstine?" Still, it was the silly season and my backers and I decided to go with it.)

We originally assumed that, because I had never so much as mentioned Whalen's name once in the five years this blog has been running, that there would be no purpose to his exposing my identity other than childish, pointless spite. Unfortunately, since that's the only plausible motive for his exposure of Pubilus at Obsidian Wings, I now had to consider myself a potential target too.

Knowing that the moment of truth could come at any time, my original plan was to stand up, like Tony Curtis at the end of "Spartacus," and proudly declare that I, not that fellow at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, was Publius. I imagined bloggers across the country--around the world--one after another proudly proclaiming, "No, I am Publius!" "No--I am!" But while the theatricality of such a moment was certainly appealing, I wasn't sure I was in a position to organize such an action.

So, in the end, I can only speak for myself: After blogging here and elsewhere as "nothstine" since December 2004, I now announce--proudly, defiantly--that I am in fact Arlen Specter, Senior United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You often wondered why you never saw the two of us in the same place at the same time--now you know.

I adopted the pseudonym because I knew that no one would take seriously the things I had to say about politics, persuasion and the media--let alone classic animation or bicycling--if they knew it was written by Specter, the professional narcissist, political opportunist, and sunshine Democrat. And, of course, there would be the difficulty of explaining my continued interest in Oregon when I have represented Pennsylvania in the US Senate for 29 years.

(Naturally, all of this (to say nothing of this) was simply an attempt--a clever one, I thought--to throw sand in the eyes of my adversaries.)

Let Whalen now do his worst; the truth has set me free.

The unforgiving minute

No one could possibly have predicted that Arlen Specter, having fled to the Democratic party after four decades as a camera-hungry Republican simply to protect his 2010 re-election chances, would be shrugging off the claims of loyalty to his new party by the first weekend's round of talking-head shows.

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Special "Coping with Disaster" Edition

It was a busy week for the political tooniverse: Specter jumped ship and swine flu jumped the border. Obama finally saw the end of his first 100 days in office, and Bush torture memos finally saw the light of day. And, luckily for us, Daryl Cagle's round-up has it all!

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, John Sherffius, R. J. Matson, Bob Englehart, John Trever, Jerry Holbert, Jeff Stahler, Pat Bagley, and Rob Rogers.

The p3 Harmonic Toon Convergence Citation goes to Jack Ohman, Gary Varvel, Walt Handlesman, and Adam Zyglis.

p3 Best of Show: David Horsey.

The p3 Certificate for Best Homage to Bill Mauldin goes to Dana Summers.

The p3 Citation for Best New Use of the "Empty Chair" Meme is awarded to Steve Sack.

The p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium is shared by Nate Beeler, J. D. Crowe, R. J. Matson, and Gary Brookins.

The p3 "It's Not Just Elephants Who Never Forget" Award goes to Daryl Cagle.

p3 World Toon Review: Oddly enough, toonists in other countries weren't so interested in Specter or the First 100 Days. Even the Bush torture memos haven't gotten much notice yet. Care to guess what they are paying attention to? Ask Cameron Cardow (Canada), Stephane Peray (Thailand), and Patrick Chapatte (Switzerland).


Ann Telnaes has two words for you. (Hint: they aren't "buy masks.")


Protecting Our Endangered Toonists: I never saw an official announcement, but it looks like Willamette Week has dropped the syndicated cartoons from its print edition (although they're still in the online edition). So p3 proudly presents the bittersweet yearnings of youth, as remembered this week in Max Cannon's Red Meat. (Thanks to John Sherffius for permission to use his "Signature Loss" image. Click to enlarge.)


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman says Republicans like theirs on the rocks (with water back).


Is it important to color inside the lines now? At first I thought this might have been a well-intentioned idea that just went off the rails; but the longer I think about it the more I think it was off the rails from the moment they first thought of it: FEMA recently took down from its website a children's coloring book featuring images of jets flying into the World Trade Towers on 9/11. Aptly titled "A Scary Thing Happened," the book--which was, we are assured, created by the Freeborn County (MN) Crisis Response Team and not by the staff of The Onion--also gives kids the opportunity to color pictures of floods, tornados, and residential fires. Its stated purpose: to help youngsters "cope with disaster."


"A Scary Thing Happened" stands in a long tradition of government-sponsored messages designed to scare the crap out of kids by reaching them at their own level. There were those snuff-porn movies about auto accidents we all had to watch in driver education class, for example. But for my money, the ultimate example was "Duck and Cover," starring Burt the Turtle. Created by the Federal Civil Defense Commission near the beginning of the Cold War in 1951 and shown in classrooms around the country for a generation, "Duck and Cover" actually managed to make the topic of sudden horrific mass deaths boring. The takeaway lesson for children: Crouching under our school desks could save us from the atomic attack that could strike our town at any second, the shock wave ripping us to shreds from shattered glass and flying brick fragments moments before the fireball boiled away the molecules of our bodies into little whiffs of ozone. Good times. "The wonder years," we used to call them--as in, "Wonder if it'll happen today?"

p3 Bonus Toon: Somewhat along the same lines, perhaps, Jesse Springer marvels that, when the apocalypse comes, at least Oregonians will be eating more sensibly. (Click to enlarge.)



And don't forget to browse Dan Froomkin's weekday political toon review.

Out-evolved

(Updated [which is more than we can say for the GOP] below.)

The whole 100-Day meme is kind of silly; it's a completely arbitrary number based on the evolutionary happenstance that we have ten fingers and toes rather than, say, eight. In a parallel universe the media might as easily have spent a week in late March scrutinizing the president's First 64 Days.

President Obama's 100-day mark arrived during the week when opposition among The Civil War Re-enactment Society Senate Repubicans to HHS Secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius collapsed, Obama passed his budget, and Sen. Arlen "Don Altobello" Specter executed a high-profile defection to the Democrats.

Whether you trust Specter or not, the optics of his jump, combined with everything else happening this week, have been simply dreadful for the GOP.

This was a week when it sucked to be RNC chair Michael Steele, even more so than in most recent weeks, That could be why, even as the Republicans (reminiscent of Democrats of yore) are fighting over whether their only shot at relevance is to step back from the ledge or jump, Steele was conspicuously not invited to be part of the newest GOP gambit.

The Republican leadership, stewing and fretting, realizes that its dream of a permanent majority, so real they could taste it only four years ago, has about as much of a chance of happening as another George Clooney "Batman" sequel.

The fact that Rove and Cheney are still making public appearances and Gingrich is seriously considered as a 2012 candidate should tell you the discussion is not going to go well:

Coming soon to a battleground state near you: a new effort to revive the image of the Republican Party and to counter President Obama's characterization of Republicans as "the party of 'no.'"

CNN has learned that the new initiative, called the National Council for a New America, will be announced Thursday.

It will involve an outreach by an interesting mix of GOP officials, ranging from 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain to Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and the younger brother of the man many Republicans blame for the party's battered brand: former President George W. Bush.

In addition to Sen. McCain and Gov. Bush, GOP sources familiar with the plans tell CNN others involved in the new group's "National Panel Of Experts" will include:

*Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national GOP chairman
*Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
*Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

It will report to GOP congressional leaders, and among those signing the announcement that will be made public Thursday are:

*House GOP Leader John Boehner
*House GOP Whip Eric Cantor
*House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence
*Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell
*The No. 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl
*And the Senate GOP Conference Chairman, Lamar Alexander

"However, this is not a Republican-only forum," reads the letter announcing the new effort, a copy of which was obtained by CNN from Republican sources involved in the effort. "While we will be guided by our principles of freedom and security, we will seek to include more than just our ideas.

"This forum will include a wide open policy debate that every American can feel free to participate in," the announcement letter reads. "We do this not just to offer an alternative point of view or to be disagreeable. Instead, we want to ask the American people what their hopes and dreams are."

(Emphasis added.) "An interesting mix of GOP officials?" Really?

Imagine a T-Rex, a triceratops, a brontosaurus, a pterodactyl, and a velociraptor fronting an initiative called "How Reptiles Can Remain the Dominant Species After the Meteor," and you'll see the problem here.

(Oddly enough, although it's full of other legacy names, I don't see Meghan McCain's name anywhere in the announcement.)

Amazing as it seems, compared to the state of things not very long ago, the Republican Party has been out-evolved.

(Image via DKos.)

(Update: John Perr reminds us that this is the second Republican re-branding in a year.)

Wrong-way Kristol: Specter's switch will hurt Obama

This was wholly predictable, but some credit should be given that it took less than 24 hours to happen.

Background: Last week in the Guardian Eric Alterman tallied up the short but happy life of William Kristol, who's been wrong about everything but his shirt size for years and years, but just keeps failing upward from one high-profile job to the next anyway. Most of us know the general arc of his career, but to see the cavalcade of error listed out on the page is a pretty jaw-dropping experience.

This morning in the Washington Post--where Kristol landed after getting the "it's not you, it's me" speech from the NYTimes a couple of months ago--he shows he's still got it:

On May 24, 2001, I wrote an op-ed for The Post in the wake of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords’s party switch. I argued that the switch, which cost Republicans control of the Senate, could well turn out to be good for President Bush.

Not entirely for the reasons I speculated on in the op-ed, I turned out to be right. Bush was still able to get enough cooperation to govern over the next year and a half, and he was also able to run successfully against the Democratic Senate in the fall of 2002. The GOP regained control that November.

Similarly and contrarianly, I wonder if today’s Arlen Specter party switch, this time to the president’s party, won’t end up being bad for President Obama and the Democrats.

Okay, two things here.

First--"contrarianly"? Dude.

Second, noting that Bush managed to stay in office after Jeffords switched parties is hardly the same as proving that the switch was "good for Bush." Of course, that was back in the days when, if a sparrow fell from the sky, beltway commentators climbed over one another to explain why this was bad for the Democrats and good for the Republicans. (And for some, it appears those days never ended.)

Kristol's reasoning (and I use the word strictly without prejudice here) runs as follows: A filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate--which Specter's defection does not make a lock, even assuming that Al Franken will be seated within his own lifetime--will give Obama no one to blame if things continue to go badly.

Removed from the Post web site and returned to the school yard where it belongs, this is a slightly more polished way of saying "There! And I hope you choke on it!" Nice.

The good news, of course, is that if Kristol says Specter's defection will be bad for the Democrats, then it will probably strengthen their hand more than I've given it credit.

Specter shifts: And this is good news because . . . ?

In a move guaranteed to lower the average integrity level of both congressional parties, Sen. Arlen Specter, facing a can of whoop-ass from the hard right in his 2010 re-election campaign, has just announced that he is shifting his affiliation to the Democratic Party.

Moments ago, longtime GOP Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican since 1966, announced he is switching parties and becoming a Democrat!

Senator Specter's bombshell comes on the heels of Democratic Congressman-elect Scott Murphy's come from behind victory in NY-20. It also comes as the ongoing legal battle in Minnesota draws closer to a conclusion that will now make Al Franken the 60th Democratic vote in the U.S. Senate.[...]

In making his announcement that he is now a Democrat, Senator Specter said, "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans. When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing."

If they seriously think this moves them one vote closer to breaking the inevitable filibustering of All Things Obama by the Civil War Re-enactment Society Senate Republicans, the DSSC are kidding themselves. Specter jumping ship has nothing to do with his "political philosophy" and everything to do with his electoral philosophy, i.e., the fact that he faces an ugly and expensive primary challenge from Club for Growth-backed former congressman Pat Toomey.

But his shtick will remain the same:

Step 1. Race to the cameras to express grave concern about Republican proposals or tactics. Grave, grave concern.

Step 2. Vote with the Republicans anyway, and shed a bitter tear.

Specter was and will remain a reliable conservative vote. The only difference between him and the rest of the Senate minority caucus is that he wants to be sure you appreciate how difficult his position is.

Watch how many filibusters Specter helps break in the next 12 months: There'll be one or two votes for show, where the outcome won't be in doubt so he can safely go ahead and vote for cloture, and for that he'll get a lot of the media attention that he loves so much. But there won't be any cloture votes in which his is the deciding vote. None. Zippo. Nada. Not gonna happen.

Worse, Senate Democrats will now feel compelled to waste even more time courting him, as an alleged Democrat, than they did when he was an alleged moderate Republican.

(Hat tip to Doctor Beyond.)

Tales from The Trunk

Longtime p3 correspondent Doctor Beyond has fine-tuned the science of sending the smallest donation possible to the GOP that will still keep him on their emailing list for fund-raising pleas, etc. Currently, he reports that it only takes $5 to stay in the game for a year.

He does it partly for the perverse pleasure of it, but mostly for surveillance purposes. A lot of the materials he gets this way aren't available to anyone else (unless a mole forwards it, like in this case).

As a case in point, consider The Weekly Trunk, an emailing from the Republican National Committee, that links to right-wing commentators and blogs (plus occasional straight-news articles) and provides a snarky bumper-sticker headline followed by a sentence or two of spin for each. For example:

Air Force "The One"
First it was Nancy Pelosi treating the Air Force like her personal airline -- now Barack Obama and an "unusually large number of people traveling with the president" are straining our ability to operate in Afghanistan. (Bill Gertz, "Military Strained by Obama Trip," The Washington Times, 4/2/09)

(Good lord--they're still recycling that bogus story from 2007 about Nancy Pelosi and the jet? Seriously?)

A typical edition includes about a dozen of those. The Trunk's stated goal, placed at the top of the page, is:

to inform and arm you with the facts you need to spread our conservative message and refute the misstatements of the Democrats.

Odd, what with it containing information and facts and all, that you can't find it on the gop.com web site. Apparently access to information and facts--or, more appropriately, <air quotes>information and facts</air quotes>--is restricted to paying customers, who get it via email. Even the ones in the cheap seats.

I didn't have the time or motivation to do a full-on fact check of the most recent edition that Doctor B forwarded to me (for the fun of watching from a distance as it set me off, I'll wager), but quickly running my eye down the page wasn't encouraging. Some samples:

Democrats Charting Course for Davy Jones' Locker
It's becoming painfully clear how irresponsible and damaging the Democrats' pie-in-the-sky spending spree is. (Mona Charen, "The Ship is Sinking: Quick, Add Water: Paying for the Democrats' Dream Agenda," NationalReviewOnline, 4/1/09)

Or:

Is it The White House, or Romper Room?
Can we have our cake and eat it, too? In Barack Obama's Lala-land, the answer is "Yes We Can!" (Ben Shapiro, "Obama's Childish Vision of Politics," Townhall.com, 4/1/09)

The particular item that pushed Doctor Beyond's button--reducing him to one-word heavy sarcasm--was this:

Party of "No?" Try Party of Common Sense
Republicans in Washington are offering a sound budget plan of cutting taxes and freezing spending -- will the Democrats listen? (Newsfront, "GOP Budget: Growth With Tax Cuts, Spending Freeze," Newsmax.com, 4/1/09)

But I think my own favorite would have to be this one:

Make Sense to You?
In the upside-down worldview of modern leftists, President Obama's performance is exactly what they would expect. (Victor Davis Hanson, "President Obama's First 70 Days: It Really Does All Make Sense," NationalReviewOnline, 4/1/09)

You can go read the NRO article yourself if you're so inclined. I just want to talk about this little blurb from The Weekly Trunk. Remove the pejorative "upside-down" and take the word "leftist" with the appropriate grain of salt (as I write, Arlen Specter is facing a likely 2010 GOP primary challenge because he's not far enough to the right), and what does it leave?

President Obama is doing the things that the people who voted for him wanted him to do!

And this is the horror that the RNC uses to whip up the crowd? Truly amazing. They really don't get that America's just not that into them anymore.

Why would Democrats even consider trusting Specter?

As recently as the beginning of the month, Arlen Specter's name was being floated as a potential 60th vote to head off filibuster on Employee Free Choice Act.

There were even those--and this would be funny if it weren't so pathetic--who imagined the EFCA as the fulcrum that could lever Specter into the Democratic Party sometime between now and his re-election in 2010.

Anyone who believed that was a sap.

The outcome in Specter's latest to-be-or-not-to-be performance was as inevitable as in all his previous theatrical turns: Specter announced today that he will be joining the rest of the Civil War Re-Enactment Society Senate Republicans to filibuster the EFCA and will vote against it if it makes it to the floor.

Arlen Specter is a one-trick pony--before the vote he makes moderate-sounding rumblings, after which the extremist wing of the Republican party threatens him, after which Specter toes the GOP party line when the vote comes down. That's what he does. That's all he does.

Is it that he wants to do the moderate thing but he's too pusillanimous to stand up to the extremists in his party? Or is it that he simply loves to play Hamlet for the cameras before coming home to the extremists?

It doesn't matter. Any legislative strategy that hinges on Specter actually opposing the extremists in his own party is destined to fail.

Message to Senate Republicans: Welcome to our world

I've spent a lot of time here over the last four years waling on Senator Arlen "Don Altobelo" Specter for his determination to be both utterly spineless and a complete media whore at the same time.

Sadly, he's still around.

Happily, he's now the Senate Republicans' problem.

Hey, Senate Repubs--don't like being stabbed in the back in the most public yet pointless way imaginable?

Welcome to our world. You can deal with him for a while.

Specter: "I'm no puppet"

Press Conference 101: Never repeat the other side's attack words in your response.

I concede that, over the last three years at p3, I've had some sport at the expense of Senator Arlen Specter, former chair and now ranking GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yes, I've made several "cave" jokes. I've compared him to the double-dealing Don Altobello. I've likened him to a foolish, posturing plumed fowl. Twice, I confess, I specifically used a borrowed analogy to draw an unfavorable comparison between Specter and a wet taco. I even compared him not to something as elevated as a grade-school bully, but to a grade-school bully's toady sidekick. At times I did everything but take bets on when next he'd make a finger-shaking press conference threatening to "get to the bottom" of some unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional act by the Bush administration, only to sheepishly vote for it (or against proper investigation of it) when the time came.

Really. I got a lot of shots in there. And now I can only say, I’m sorry, but in my defense I only had three years. There was so much more material to harvest that I never had time for.

All of which brings us to this recent bit of clueless hoof-stamping, which probably identifies the single best metaphor for the senior senator from Pennsylvania:

Taking offense at being described as a “puppet” of President Bush, Sen. Arlen Specter fired back at Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday, suggesting the Nevada Democrat isn’t up to running the Senate.

Reid on Dec. 4 had blamed what he called Republican obstructionism in the Senate on allegiance to Bush.

“He is the man who is pulling the strings on the 49 puppets he has here in the Senate,” Reid said, referring to the chamber’s GOP members.

Specter, R-Pa., cried foul and declared that Reid had not only violated Senate Rule XIX, which prohibits the questioning of a senator’s integrity, but was just flat wrong.[…]

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said it’s understandable that Republicans are sensitive about being associated with Bush.

“But the results speak for themselves when Republicans stall the process and then complain it’s not moving fast enough,” he said.

The Senator's figure then levitated upward from the stage, drawn by the wires affixed to his limbs, and was returned to a trunk in the basement of the Executive Office Building where he'll remain until he's needed again.

(Image via Youssouf's Sheeplog.)

Don Altobello speaks!

Shorter Specter: Let's bring White House people in for another round of lies and evasions to help Bush run out the clock--we can always try to actually get the truth later.

Arlen Specter, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on how to respond to the White House's claim of executive privilege as grounds to insist that it will only allow its subpoenaed staffers to testify if they aren't under oath and if there is no transcript (i.e., only if they can lie with complete impunity):

I think we ought to give consideration to bringing in those individuals and finding out what we can under the president's terms. It doesn't preclude us from compulsory process and proceeding with the subpoenas at a later time.

Specter, it should be pointed out, has only a tiny little smidgen of conscience, a cheap little toy compass that works better as a bracelet charm than as any sort of guide to principled action.

When he was chair of the Judiciary Committee, it was a sad yet infuriating joke. He would rehearse this same little dithering speech--exactly!--whenever Gonzales and his bunch would come in and lie to his face about wiretapping, torture, or what have you, and he insisted there was no need place them under oath. Then they'd lie, Specter would read about it in the papers and get asked about it on Sunday morning TV, and he'd fume, "We've got to get to the bottom of this!"

Until the next time, when they'd do it to him again. Lucy Van Pelt never found a more willing sucker.

Fortunately for Senator Specter, there's a ready line of talking-head shows willing to bring him on and present his particularly adle-pated form of accommodationism

Hat tip to Doctor Beyond, for knowing perfectly well that once he mentioned it to me I wouldn't be able to drop it.

Lieberman helps bury Gonzales "no-confidence" resolution

September 3, 1988: Senator Joe Lieberman (technically a Democrat), addressing the Senate regarding President Clinton and the Independent Prosecutor's report:

The President's intentional and consistent misstatements may also undercut the trust that the American people have in his word, which would have substantial ramifications for his presidency. Under the Constitution, as presidential scholar Richard Neustadt has noted, the President's ultimate source of authority, particularly his moral authority, is the power to persuade, to mobilize public opinion and build consensus behind a common agenda, and at this the President has been extraordinarily effective. But that power hinges on the President's support among the American people and their faith and confidence in his motivations, his agenda, and ultimately his personal integrity. As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, "My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens who are straight and honest cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest; that is all the strength I have."

Sadly, with his deception, President Clinton may have weakened the great power and strength of which President Roosevelt spoke. I know this is a concern that many of my colleagues share, that the President has hurt his credibility and therefore, perhaps, his chances of moving his agenda forward. But I believe that the harm the President's actions have caused extend beyond the political arena. I am afraid that the misconduct the President has admitted may be reinforcing one of the most destructive messages being delivered by our popular culture --namely that values are essentially fungible. And I am afraid that his misconduct may help to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong left in our society.

June 11, 2007: Senator Joe Lieberman (technically an Independent), voting on cloture for the no-confidence resolution regarding Alberto Gonzales (the complete text of which reads: "It is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people."):

No.

As Raw Story spells it out:

Only seven Republicans voted with their Democratic colleagues to express their disappointment with the firing of 8 US Attorneys and other controversial matters in Gonzales's administration of the Department of Justice: Norm Coleman (MN) Susan Collins (ME), Chuck Hagel (NE), Gordon Smith (OR), Olympia Snowe (ME), Arlen Specter (PA), and John Sununu (NH).

Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, voted with the Republicans. The vote tally was 53 in favor of invoking cloture, and 38 voting to continue debate. One senator voted 'present.'

Explain this to me again: What possible purpose can there be, other than a sapheaded obedience to the most false kind of collegiality imaginable, that prevents Senate Majority Leader Reid from stripping Lieberman of his seniority (and with it, his committee rank)?

Gonzales has gutted the Justice Department and placed the hollowed-out remains in the service of his master, George Bush, turning the chief law-enforcement agency of the land into nothing more than "a political arm of the White House".

He should be strung up by his sweaty little thumbs, but at least a vote of no confidence would have been a start.

Of the seven Republicans who voted for cloture on the resolution, five (including Oregon's own faux-centrist junior Senator) are sweating bullets over their re-election next year.

But even Arlen Specter, who as chair of the Judiciary Committee putatively charged with oversight of Gonzales' Justice Department never failed to collapse like a wet taco when it was time to put his professed outrage into action, found the gumption to support the no-confidence resolution.

Not Joe, though. All that high-minded talk of "the American people and their faith and confidence" their leaders' "motivations," "agenda," and "personal integrity" sits poorly on the lips of a man who makes a routine practice of selling out his own party and caucus for the cameras.

The most dangerous place in Washington is between Lieberman and a TV camera where he can demonstrate his loyalty to the Bush agenda.

Refresh my memory: Why did all those Democrats get elected last fall?

(Updated below.)

I thought it was to get us out of Iraq the soonest, safest way possible. Guess not:

Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package yesterday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months.
Bush, who has already vetoed one spending bill with a troop timeline, had threatened to do the same with the next version if it came with such a condition.

Pelosi declares herself "disappointed" (which makes me wonder what she's doing to earn her keep as Speaker), and says she thinks she might vote against it. Well, that's something, I suppose.

Feingold, ahead of the pack and practically talking to himself, as usual, stated early and plainly that he'd vote against the "compromise" bill, with its idle talk of "18 political and legislative benchmarks for the Iraqi government."

Under the President’s Iraq policies, our military has been over-burdened, our national security has been jeopardized, and thousands of Americans have been killed or injured. Despite these realities, and the support of a majority of Americans for ending the President’s open-ended mission in Iraq, congressional leaders now propose a supplemental appropriations bill that does nothing to end this disastrous war. I cannot support a bill that contains nothing more than toothless benchmarks and that allows the President to continue what may be the greatest foreign policy blunder in our nation’s history. There has been a lot of tough talk from members of Congress about wanting to end this war, but it looks like the desire for political comfort won out over real action. Congress should have stood strong, acknowledged the will of the American people, and insisted on a bill requiring a real change of course in Iraq.

[Emphasis added.] Considering Bush is taking steps to double his "surge" in Iraq without congressional approval, why would anyone imagine that "benchmarks" will matter? When the time comes, Bush's people will say they're showing "progress" against the benchmarks, every other expert on the planet will say they're quite obviously not, the media will give it "on the one hand, on the other hand" coverage, and people will actually take Arlen Specter seriously when he says he's "going to get to the bottom of this" and promises that "heads will roll."

I keep looking for some indication that the Dems have some larger strategy, beyond accommodating Bush when he holds his breath and threatens to turn blue. But I'm not seeing it. Reid insists that this supplemental bill is "not a blank check," but it's hard to view it any other way.

(Maha at Mahablog is a little more charitable--a little--arguing that Reid and Pelosi can't do much until they get more pro-war Dems and Republicans on board to rein Bush in, and that, in the meantime, this bill should be voted down. Update: Aravosis at AmericaBlog isn't buying it: He argues--pretty convincingly--that if being accused of defunding the troops is political poison, that ought to be doubly so for Mr. Veto.)

May has not seen much to be proud of from the Democrats: First they folded on another key issue that ushered them into power this term: ethics reform. And they're tied up in immigration (un)reform that no one will be happy with, if it even manages to make it to a vote.

Now they've presented an appropriations bill that appears to all-but-strangle any chance of meaningful change in Iraq policy before Bush leaves office. Vote this dog down.

(Images via Crooks and Liars and the Australian Real Estate Blog.)