Arlen Specter jumps off the RNC Titanic

Arlen Specter became a Democrat today, but he really hasn’t changed much over the years, honest. This is a basically conservative man who authored the Warren Commission’s Magic Bullet theory. He’s very strongly pro gun-rights. He’s pretty well opposed to same-sex marriage, though he supports civil unions, which is the classic “I want to have it both ways” stance. He’s pro choice and very progressive on environmental issues, but he’s the same guy who unmercifully badgered Professor Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and accused her of “flat-out” perjury. And Senator Specter also voted against the confirmation of Judge Robert Bork and voted to acquit President Clinton in his impeachment hearing before the Senate. Senator Specter’s made a career of straddling the fence and thumbing his nose at party orthodoxy if he couldn’t stomach it. He’s a somewhat less frootbatty version of Joe Lieberman, and an unwarheroish version of John McCain. He’s annoyed Republicans almost as much as he’s annoyed Democrats. In other words, he’s a middle of the road moderate. The last straw was his vote in support of President Obama’s stimulus package. That rankled the party, and conservatives in Pennsylvania. Specter didn’t care. He can’t be pigeonholed. Back in the day, he was considered a conservative, but as he stayed put, the party moved so far to the right of him that Specter has recently found himself feeling aligned more with colleagues such as former Senators (and former Republicans) Jim Jeffords of Vermont and Lowell Weicker of Connecticut. In other words, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

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There’s no room for Jeffords, Weicker and Specter anymore in a meaner, colder, and far smaller GOP ruled by Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. Ronald Reagan would be seriously pissed off today, and I’m betting Bob Dole is right now. Not at Specter so much as the party that gave him no other option.

David Frum, the former Bush adviser and Republican strategist, said this morning after Specter’s announcement: "The Specter defection is too severe a catastrophe to qualify as a "wake-up call." His defection is the thing we needed the wake-up call to warn us against! For a long time, the loudest and most powerful voices in the conservative world have told us that people like Specter aren't real Republicans -- that they don't belong in the party. Now he's gone, and with him the last Republican leverage within any of the elected branches of government. For years, many in the conservative world have wished for an ideologically purer GOP. Their wish has been granted. Happy?"

I’ve said this before: the GOP is skidding into irrelevance and legislative impotence. They’ve spent so much time and effort pandering to their core constituency that now that’s all that’s left. It’s no longer a big tent. Today, it’s a rickety lean-to. McCain’s choice of Governor Caribou Barbie gave him no inroads in the country’s moderate center that would have helped in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as North Carolina and New Mexico.

I welcome the new, greater tent, even if it includes someone with whom I often disagree. We’re a party that has room for both Arlen Specter and Ted Kennedy. Exchanges of ideas will help everyone. Specter won’t always vote with the Democratic caucus, nor should he. We don’t demand party rigidity, just a commitment to making things better. I’m glad Senator Specter feels wanted now. It should be an abject lesson to his former colleagues, but I’m sure it won’t be. The American people told them in November they have no clothes. They didn’t get it. Arlen Specter’s given them the same message today. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s response to Specter’s defection? “It’s a threat to the country”. No it’s not, it’s a threat to the Republican party. The two aren’t synonymous, and never were. Rush Limbaugh’s reaction? “Take John McCain and his daughter with you”. Ok, the more the merrier! I’d be glad to have them. I like Meghan McCain. She’s adorable and interesting. She has ideas, she questions and thinks independently of those around her. Sounds like a Democrat in the making to me. The one response that seems to be entirely absent from the right wing today was “We have a problem”. I say keep on keeping on, Republicans! The rest of us will be just fine without you.

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On a completely separate note, I empathize with all the terrified people in lower Manhattan yesterday who were buzzed by the backup Air Force One in the service of the world’s dumbest photo opportunity. The stunt was inexcusable and insensitive, and had I been there, I’d have gone tachycardic, too. Freaked out New Yorkers who are sent back into grief counseling and suffer relapses of PTSD should have the White House Military Office, who ordered that horribly misguided flight, pay their medical and psychiatric bills. It’s nice to know that even in a new, more enlightened administration, the Department of Defense remains as tone deaf as ever. The outfit that brought you “An Army of One”, “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure” and “Don’t ask, don’t tell” hit another homer with “Let’s buzz New York City. They won’t mind.” I can’t be the only one who wishes he was there when President Obama called his military officer in and said “Would you like to explain precisely what you were thinking when you decided to terrify millions of New Yorkers just to take a few pictures of the Statue of Liberty? How would you like to be the new military protocol officer in Juneau? That’ll give you a perfect opportunity to ponder all the meanings of the words ‘Boy, did I fuck that up’.”