Specter

Like everybody else, I'm struck that he didn't bother to place a fig leaf over his crass opportunism. He said, "I looked at the polls and I couldn't win as a Republican, so I'm going to run as a Democrat."

OK. Fine.

But dude, you're 79 years old and you've had cancer. Twice. There is another alternative. It's called retirement.

I take it for granted that I'm going to have to work until I'm dead. But Arlen Specter doesn't have to. What is it about these DC jobs that keep people hanging on so that you literally have to pry their cold, dead hands off of them? Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, John Paul Stevens. Don't you guys have grandkids? Aren't there some golf courses out there you're dying to tee off on? I know power is great, but guys, get a life!

Comments

[Lee]

Interesting that one of the reasons Souter gave for wanting to retire is that he wants to climb mountains and enjoying the outdoors in NH while he's still young. Now that sounds sensible to me.

[Michael Westmoreland-White]

That's what was so refreshing about Souter's retirement from SCOTUS while still healthy and young enough to enjoy retirement. He resisted the power addiction of D.C.

But whereas Specter's naked opportunism was one kind of obvious, the opportunism of the Democrats was another and even more pathetic. The Democratic establishment welcomed him, let him keep his seniority on committees, promise to campaign for him and to discourage any real PA Democrats from primarying him. And its not clear what the Dem establishment gets in return: Specter pledges to still vote against EFCA (a labor priority--yet he expects labor's support), he voted against the budget, voted against bankruptcy reform, plans to vote against the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to OLC, etc. Specter's "conversion" makes him automatically the most conservative Democrat in the Senate--to the right of Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), the Walmart Dems Pryor (D-AR), and Lincoln (D-AR), and Evan Bayh (D-IN). For this he gets a pledge of presidential campaign support? When in 2010, PA Dems were poised to replace Specter anyway with a real Democrat who, though maybe conservative by NY or CA standards, would still be a real improvement over Specter.