Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325810081394462
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Politics: In finally abandoning the Republican Party, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter showed his true colors not just ideologically, but personally. It's all about the liberal Specter maximizing his own power.
Read More: General Politics
The climax Tuesday of Arlen Specter's long, drawn-out betrayal of his party may seem like it came out of nowhere — especially since it was only last month that he said he'd seek re-election as a Republican. But why be shocked when a hardened Machiavellian does what comes naturally after doing the math?
As a Democrat, Sen. Specter will now be Washington's king power broker, since he is poised to be the 60th vote for Democrats in the U.S. Senate, constituting a filibuster-proof majority at a time when the federal government is undergoing an unprecedented expansion in size and power.
Arlen Specter: A RINO no more.
No one is falling for Specter's hand-wringing rationale that "since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right." He was just as uncomfortable with Reaganism back then as he is now, all along relishing his role as RINO — Republican In Name Only — whose vote was up for sale.
"Last year," Specter added, "more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."
He must not have been looking for that philosophy very hard, or he would have "found" it's been that way for decades.
What Specter saw, in fact, as he looked at the people of Pennsylvania was that his days were numbered. Former congressman and Club for Growth president Pat Toomey, who nearly snatched the GOP nomination away from the longtime incumbent in 2004, has been organizing an encore effort that Specter obviously surmised was going to succeed in 2010.
The game that the former Philadelphia prosecutor has played for so long would no longer work. He got away with betraying party principles on everything from tax cuts to Supreme Court appointments because periodically his specialized abilities would come in handy — most memorably in grilling Justice Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.
It will be a new dance now. As vote No. 60 in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body (assuming vote No. 59 belongs to comedian Al Franken of Minnesota), Specter will be owed an incalculable debt by congressional Democrats and President Obama.
There will be no threats of party discipline against him on the occasions when he votes with Republicans, no warnings that campaign funds will be kept from him. (You think they want Toomey to beat him in 2010?) Each and every big vote in the Senate will be a bargaining opportunity for Specter. Riches and favors will be showered upon him for the power he prostitutes.
There has never been a more important time to temper the power being wielded in Washington, never a time when putting country before political ambition was so consequential. The system of economic freedom that built and sustains America is at stake, as are the fortunes of our children and grandchildren.
Thanks to Arlen Specter, that destructive power may now be absolute. Reserve a space for a new addition to history's Rogues' Gallery.
No comments:
Post a Comment