Nearly all of the many cartoons I saw about Senator Arlen Specter’s opportunistic change of party this week portrayed it either as a victory (moral or otherwise) for Democrats or a wake-up call or object lesson for Republicans. Of course it was none of those, and it took a cartoonist in Specter’s home state to see it for what it was and to tell it like it is.
Related post on From Scratch: Flip-flop Award – Arlen Specter
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Signe Wilkinson
Philadelphia Daily News Apr 29, 2009 |
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Well, reasoned pragmatism like that is very welcome if it allows Obama to implement his mandate.
Politicians — they’re famous for always putting people first. Usually starting in the first person, of course.
Roads’s last blog post..208. Radio Luxembourg
Hi, Roads. There is that, of course, but his chutzpah and hypocrisy are breathtaking even for a politician, as I droned in the flip-flop award. There’s talk Tom Ridge might run for the Republican nomination now and if he does and gets it, Specter will have one heck of a fight on his hands. But who knows? Arlen might end up acting more like a Democrat than Joe Lieberman. Not always difficult.
Interesting development this morning. The Senate last night voted to strip Specter of his seniority after his change of party. This could really hurt him. From the Washington Post:
Specter said last week that becoming chairman of the Appropriations Committee was a personal goal of his, and his Senate service seemed to put him in position to be the third-ranking Democrat there. Now, though, he will not hold even an Appropriations subcommittee chairmanship in 2011 — a critical foothold Specter has used to send billions of dollars to Pennsylvania.