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.