Welcome Arlen Specter, You Piece of Crap

So it says here that Arlen Specter is going to switch parties. Apparently he has come to the realization that he can’t win the Pennsylvania Republican nomination for Senate because he is too moderate and the party’s conservative wing is going to boot him in the primary. Since Pennsylvania has a “sore loser” law (unlike Connecticut, where the absence of such a law allowed Joe Lieberman two bites at the electoral apple), if Specter loses his primary, he cannot run as an independent in the general election and then caucus with the Republicans (again, similar to what Lieberman did).

Allow me to be the first to say “Welcome to the Democratic Party, Sen. Specter. You unprincipled piece of shit.” You’re the guy who served as Dubya’s lapdog the entire time he was POTUS. You called yourself a “moderate” but couldn’t even be bothered to join the so-called “Gang of Fourteen” (well, if you had joined it would have been fifteen anyway, but you know what I mean) to avoid the “nuclear option” regarding the appointment of members of the federal bench. You bitched and whined about wanting Congressional oversight of presidential pardons when Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, but were oddly silent when Bush the Younger commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence. And now that the writing is on the wall and you realize you have no chance of winning the Republican nomination, you find religion and are willing to become a Democrat.

I’m sure you will spin this as some sort of “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me” kind of conversion. The party is too rigid, too doctrinal, too intolerant for you to allow yourself to continue being a member. Sure it is. What’s weird is that to many, me included, the party doesn’t seem to be all that much more doctrinal than it has been the last eight years. It’s very strange to me that you are only changing parties when your own electoral ass is on the line. Up until now you have been part of the loyal opposition and a dutiful supporter of all those filibusters, efforts at Social Security privatization and whatever other ridiculous policies the Republican party went for. But now, things have changed. Right?

Don’t get me wrong, Senator. I’m glad you’re switching and I sincerely hope you win reelection as a Democrat. I’m grateful for your vote but I hope it’s worth it. You come off looking unprincipled and motivated only by political survival. You don’t want to stop being a Senator and you are willing to turn your back on years of service couched in a certain set of beliefs that you will now repudiate. You will be vilified by Republicans and quietly tolerated by Democrats whom you have worked so tirelessly against for so long.

I suppose you will compare yourself to Jim Jeffords and I get that. Sort of. Jeffords also pissed off a ton of people with his switch (although he went from Republican to Independent and didn’t go all the way over, technically, to the opposition), but at a minimum I think most people (but far from all) thought that Jeffords’ switch was really related to his conscience and wasn’t so naked a political move. Jeffords was a moderate ad he was in no danger of being tossed out of office. Your move smacks of desperation and while I am glad to have the vote, I think less of you know than I did yesterday and, truth be told, I’ve always had a pretty negative opinion of you in the first place.