Specter No Longer Haunts Republican Party

Despite all the unabashed glee among the Leftist media, Arlen Specter's defection to the Democrat Party should have shocked no one who has been paying attention to his political career. He has been the bane of conservatives within the Republican Party. The most recent example of his fondness for a bloated, over-spending federal government is found in his support for the pork-laden American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. He has championed the cause of unrestricted abortion on demand during his tenure in the Senate, much to the chagrin of most of his fellow party members. In 1987, he carried a prominent torch among the witch-hunting mob targeting Judge Robert Bork due to Bork's openly and strictly Constitutional views on various issues. The senator from Pennsylvania spinelessly attempted to placate both sides of the aisle by voting on the impeachment charges against former President Bill Clinton as "not proven" despite the fact that no such option exists in American jurisprudence. The fact that this "Republican in Name Only" did not bolt sooner for the Democrat plantation stands as the sole surprise in this latest episode on Capitol Hill.

His tenuous loyalty to the Republican Party has been as glaring as the midday sun in the Sahara Desert. Former President George W. Bush should have steered clear of this eventual turncoat. Instead, Bush foolishly played the role of a team player to campaign publicly for Specter in 2004 despite strong criticism from within his ranks for doing so. Disproving the myth that elephants possess a strong capacity for remembering, the Republicans foolishly chose Specter as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005. Did they think that he needed a forum to add more verbs to the American lexicon in addition to his contribution to the creation of the term "bork"? In response to his successful re-election, Specter showed his ingratitude by warning that any of Bush's judicial nominees who did not spout the pro-abortion mantra would be subject to filibusters to prevent confirmation. With RINOs like Specter in key positions of power, why did the Democrats worry so much about regaining the majority in Congress?

So what served as Specter's response to growing criticism from conservatives and his attempt to curry favor with his constituents? He implied that his home-state's Philadelphia Eagles lost the thirty-ninth Super Bowl due to forbidden video recording by their opponents, the New England Patriots, in the game. Such phony pandering on a diversionary topic revealed this Ivy Leaguer's contemptuous condescension toward those he purported to represent.

Time will tell what fallout will result from this bombshell that Arlen Specter has ignited. His treachery may have consolidated the Democrats stranglehold on power in Washington. Assuming that Al Franken's lackeys have successfully stuffed enough questionable ballots in the appropriate boxes, the Republicans will no longer be able to resort to filibusters. If the failed talk show host can dupe the members of the Minnesota Supreme Court into confirming his ascension to the Senate, no roadblock will lay in the path to the Proletarian Paradise.

As for the Republican Party, what has it lost in this incident? The defection of a long-time member carries a modicum of embarrassment, at least on a superficial level. Such decisions can rattle the confidence of party loyalists. Feelings of despair and resignation to further desertions in the future may result. However, when someone exploits a moment of weakness of his comrades for his own self-aggrandizement and personal gain, one must question the true value of that traitor. Specter's departure frees the Republicans to support Representative Pat Toomey, an unblushing proponent of capitalism, in next year's senatorial election. At least the Republican voters of Pennsylvania will not be forced to debate loyalty to their party versus fidelity to their principles while standing in the voting booths next year.

The talking heads' ridiculous pronouncements of the collapse of the Republican Party betray their willful ignorance of recent American political events. Did the Democrat Party fall into a continuous downward spiral in 1994 when it lost control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for the first time in four decades? Did the Democrat Party decline into irrelevance after Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Representative Billy Tauzin switched from Democrat to Republican in 1995? Did the Democrats shrink into a merely regional party in 2003 after the Republicans had won a majority of the seats in the Senate after already holding the White House and House of Representatives for the first time since 1953? Was the death knell pronounced for the Democrats in 2004 when Tom Daschle, the Senate Minority Leader at the time, lost his re-election bid? The announcements of the downfall of the Republican Party betray the fantasies of those that utter them rather than objective prognostication.