On Tuesday, in an interview with the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Arlen Specter was asked about his concern that there would be no Jewish Republican senators with his leaving the party. His response was that there was “still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner."
Clearly, Senator Specter still holds sacred the Republican tradition of setting aside electoral counts in favor of election losers being appointed by right wing activist courts.
That single statement, be it misspoken or ill thought out or simply an “I don’t give a good damn”, slap in the face to his new sponsors should just tear it for good and all.
President Obama, Vice-President Biden, Governor Ed Rendell, Senator Bob Casey and any others who lent their support to Specter in his illusory jump from one stationary point to the same stationary point should say, “Thank you for your service Arlen, however brief, but we feel you would be a better fit with a new Independent Party or whatever you want to call it.”
Specter would then be free to go where he could really find philosophical brotherhood as he and Joe Liebermann (the other Jewish Republican senator) could stake out a broom closet for the new Independent caucus. The broom closet, two chairs and one of those new fangled tallow candles for light are all that is required to set them up in as independent a fashion as they could stand.
If they come to a point where the echoes rattling around in their broom closet make them feel a little lonely, they could have the Capitol Hill custodial staff hang a red light outside the closet and invite the Senate’s Blue Dogs and their attendant lobbyists to join them. The total volume of vented gas helped along by the oxygen consumption of the candle should turn the closet’s atmosphere to a stagnant, choking, unsurvivable miasma in no time, thereby allowing them to render true service to the Republic for once in their lives.
