The Specter of Arrogance

Four years ago, the Bush folks pulled out all the stops to help Arlen Specter prevail in a primary against a mainstream Republican, Congressman Pat Toomey.

Specter repaid this effort by voting to bury the country under a veritable Everest of new debt and, finally abjuring the charade, today announced his change of parties.

Good riddance.

Consider this codswallop, recited in The Times;

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration tobecome Democrats," Mr. Specter said in a statement released in the early afternoon. "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

He said he has experienced a change of heart since the response to his vote for the stimulus legislation.

"Since then, I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion," his statement said. "It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."

Hmm. The Party of George Bush is further to the right than the Party of Ronald Reagan? Perhaps, instead of changing parties, Specter should bop on over for a CT scan; he’s clearly delusional.

As respects the last observation, thought, he’s entirely correct. Betraying the Party that nominated him does rather tend to sour one’s relationships therewith. And, this time, he wouldn’t have a "conservative" President of his own Party moving mountains and twisting arms to keep him in office. Funny; it may have escaped notice, but the papers do not report that Specter objected to all that GOP support, from those awful, horrible right wingers, four years ago.

"Sometimes party asks too much", the Senator opined. It will be interesting, then, to see whether the Democrats ever ask too much. The smart money is that since he has banked his political future on making Chuck Schumer happy, there will be no favor too large for the Senator to grant to the radical left.

And fellow patriot, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe– one of the other Republican votes to bankrupt the country -- held forth solemnly:

"On the national level of the Republican Party, we haven’t certainly heard warm, encouraging words about how they view moderates, either you are with us or against us. Political diversity makes a party stronger and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history for any political party the way things are unfolding."

Please. First, there was nothing the least be "moderate" about casting a vote to indebt our posterity to the tune of $1 trillion, or is there in the ongoing efforts to run perpetual trillion dollar deficits. Those are radical, absurd positions.

Second, to this day, no one has ever produced a workable definition of "moderate". The only reliable prediction one can make about a "moderate" is that he will be wrong at least 50% of the time. Republicans never insisted on lockstep agreement with some divinely ordained orthodoxy, but when the Party finally asks its members to demonstrate some modicum of fiscal responsibility, that’s simply too much for the "moderates". Phooey. If Snowe and believes that Obama, Pelosi, and Reed are "moderates", or that anything about their programs represent "moderation", there is, indeed, no place in the GOP for her. We’re better of without her, too.

As Thomas Paine observed:

"A thing moderately good is not as good as it ought to be. Moderation in temperament is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

Now, Specter having secured election as a Republican, however pale, the honorable thing to do would be to emulate Phil Gramm. When the Democrats moved too far to the left for him, he switched parties. But he RESIGNED and gave the people of his district, who may have considered Party affiliation important when they voted, the opportunity to pass judgment on the merits of his arguments.

Of course, honor is, alas, rare among politicians and entirely absent among leftists. So, Specter, elevating himself and his ego above his constituents, for crass personal reasons and ambition, bolts. Again, if his ideology demands that he sit with the Moveon, Daily Kos crowd, fine; that’s his call. But he should resign and let the people of PA decide whether they want yet another Obama stooge in the Senate. Maybe they do; Specter seems to think so. Perhaps he’s right. The honorable path would be to offer them that choice. If that’s what they want, they deserve what they get.

As respects a "small tent", the simple fact is that politics is, in the first instance, about ideas, not power. One gains power only to the extent that the people affirm the validity of one’s ideas. At present, it appears that the people want huge, expensive, intrusive government, and that’s precisely what the Obamaites intend to give them. That’s horribly wrong; it will, inevitably, produce stagnation, decline, and misery; it always has everywhere it’s been tried and we will be no exception.

If the Republican Party simply seconds the motion, what’s the point of the Party in the first place? We already have one Party supporting huge government, confiscatory taxes, mountains of debt, and flagrant irresponsibility; what possible purpose would be served by having two? If Snowe and Specter believe that represents good policy, they’re not "moderates"; they’re liberals, and there’s no point having them in the GOP. A Party profits not at all by polluting its message with "diverse" opposing views from within. Either we’re the Party of small, efficient, freedom-supporting government, or we’re not. What’s the point of having power if the policies never change? We should offer a choice, not an echo. If the people reject our message, so be it. If they want to elect Democrats, that's their call. And they'll get precisely what they deserve.

Put simply, Republicans believe that expansion of government, higher taxes, "spreading of wealth", perpetual deficits, etc., are inexcusably irresponsible and represent generational theft on a massive scale. (That young people disproportionately support the policies and party which busies itself digging their financial graves represents one of the great ironies of politics)

History, not the GOP electorate, will pass judgment on Specter’s career, and it’s likely to be most unkind. The politicians who abet massive increase in the size and power of government enjoy only one solace: they’ll be dead before history turns their names to mud. But our children will never forgive them for undermining their future.