Flitting Specter

Do I even need to link to a news story about Arlen Specter crossing ranks to become a Democrat? By the time this entry posts, the whole story will be done to death, no doubt.

But it seems to me an occasion worth observing, not so much for whatever numerical or strategic gain it nets the Democrats (or perhaps loss--Glenn Greenwald suggests Specter will be another Lieberman, pulling the party to the right without embracing many, if any, classic Democrat positions). No, the thing that's curious to me is that while I don't agree with Specter on a lot, and often had occasion to be disappointed in him when he did talk the talk without walking the walk, Senator Specter was nonetheless the guy I could readily point to as "oh no, there are some good Republican politicians in Washington--Arlen Specter is alright." This is, of course, why Republicans liked to call Senator Specter a "RINO" (a "Republican In Name Only," if you somehow missed that acronym); he was known to step out of sync with his party enough times that Democrats and even a few liberals liked or even sorta grudgingly respected him as a man of principle....

At least relatively speaking, I might say. It's pretty evident that Specter jumped ship when he realized he was going to get bludgeoned in a primary by his party-of-the-last-four-decades. So his principles perhaps take a back seat to his urge to stay in office; indeed, it appears Mr. Specter became a Republican so he could get elected to an office in the first place, switching parties to run for District Attorney in Philadelphia after the Democrat's political machine up there blew him off. But, you know, he's a Senator; was it Mark Twain who suggested Congress comprised America's criminal class, or Will Rogers?

Specter's defection assuredly relegates him from his position as a tolerably-good Republican to routinely-disappointing Democrat, I'm afraid. And meanwhile, who can I point to in the party to say, "Well, there's somebody who's sort of reasonable"? If Specter is only a symbolic and numerical gain to the Democrats (if Al Franken is certified for a Senate seat, the Dems will have a magical sixty votes, which will allow them to absorb all of the psychic energy of every Congress ever and grant them the ability to read thoughts and, at long last, have children and someday grow old and die), he's a devastating loss for the Republican camp, since he may have been the last gentle silverback in the monkey house. I'm sure many Republicans won't see that--the ones who have considered Specter a Judas in their midst for years will be glad he's gone, I'm sure--but his departure really does mean that the crazy, screechy poo-flinging monkeys have finally taken complete control of the Republican party. No, really: the only people who are left are the sort who want the GOP to vote on the Democrats' new name.

Okay, they still have John McCain, but (a) Rush wants him gone, and Rush is sort of the party boss or something, and anyway (b) McCain kinda showed a staggering lack of judgment during the 2008 election campaign.

There's one more point in all of this that the conservatives are likely to miss: Specter's former "RINOhood" and quick embrace by the Democrats is less a sign of how liberal Arlen Specter is than it is a sign of just how centrist/conservative the Democrats really are. There are exceptional Democrats, of course--Representative Kucinich, for instance, is actually a liberal. But the frequent accusation of the right that Democrats are ultra-left socialists or some such is absurd, and if there were anything to it I don't think you'd see any Democrats clambering to embrace Specter's defection. Specter will mostly fit in with his "new" friends because the Democrats are largely the party of the intelligent right and the Republicans are increasingly the party of the lunatic fringe.