Senator goes face to face with dissent

Senator Arlen Specter left with his security detail after a town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pa.



I give Specter credit for little, but give him great credit for doing this: facing loud-mouths, allowing people to voice their opinions, and trying to conduct a town-hall meeting despite raucous disruptions.







Many said the Obama administration’s plans for a new health care system were just another example of a federal government that had again gone too far, just as it had, they said, with the economic stimulus, the auto industry bailout and the cap-and-trade program.

What if the government hadn't intervened? What if it allowed the recession to deepen, allowed the car industry to implode and be taken over by foreign firms?

“This is about the dismantling of this country,” Katy Abram, 35, shouted at Mr. Specter, drawing one of the most prolonged rounds of applause. “We don’t want this country to turn into Russia.”

Russia is a capitalist nation. Autocratic, but capitalist.

Ms. Abram described herself as a stay-at-home mother from Lebanon, and in many ways she was representative of the almost entirely white and irritable crowd, most of whom were from the area. Based on interviews with several dozen people who attended, it appeared that about 80 percent of those who showed up opposed the planned changes to the health care system.

Does she cling to her guns? White and irritable.

Anger at a Town Hall Meeting

This guy condemned Senator Specter, and told him God would judge him in due time. What that has t do with health care reform perhaps only he knows.

It was the angriest people who got in line first.

And their anger, while intense, is not representative of general public sentiment.

The crowd was largely hostile to Mr. Specter, who was repeatedly booed and heckled as topics like health care, immigration, government spending and the cap-and-trade program to control pollution were brought up. Many also expressed broad if unspecified disdain for the government and for President Obama.

Broad if unspecified disdain for government and the President: well, if they had the nerve to be politically incorrect rather than just angry, they might say the word black, the one they wish they could, but will not, say.


most of those who spoke Tuesday seemed unlikely to vote in the Democratic primary. Many seemed concerned about issues that are either not in the health care legislation or are peripheral to the debate in Washington — abortion, euthanasia, coverage of immigrants, privacy.

Abortion is not part of the health care bills being offered, and euthanasia is not part of any bill up for consideration: it is a word bandied about as a scare tactic to rile people. Immigrants? A flase target.

“It says plainly right there they want to limit the type of care elderly can get,” said Laurel Tobias, an office manager from Lebanon, referring to a bill in the House. “They are talking about killing people.”

Specter defects

Arlen Specter defects, not to the Soviets, commies, or Cuba, but to the Democratic Party. Take that, Mitch McConnell. Some Republicans aren't, of course, happy.

Steele's trash talk

Politico - ‎34 minutes ago‎

[T]he Republican National Committee Chairman said it was "not only disrespectful, but downright rude" of Specter to make this decision after the national party made it clear it would stand behind him in a contentious primary fight.

More GOP React: Steele Calls Specter "Left Wing" Newsweek

Cornyn miffed, Hutchison "surprised" at Specter switch Dallas Morning News

Specter defects, strengthens Obama's hand.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Arlen Specter abandoned the Republican Party for President Barack Obama's Democrats on Tuesday, putting them within reach of a 60-seat majority that could give them absolute control of the Senate.

SNAP ANALYSIS: Specter defection a sharp blow to Republicans

"This is a painful decision," Specter told reporters of the stunning decision which boosted his 2010 re-election chances to a sixth six-year term by sidestepping a tough challenge in the Republican primary from conservative Pat Toomey.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promptly welcomed Specter, 79, into the ranks of Democrats, who together with him now control 59 seats in the 100-member Senate. Democrats will reach 60 if they hold on to a contested Minnesota Senate race.

A 60-vote majority would be enough to override Republican procedural hurdles and muscle through key parts of Obama's agenda, including measures to provide health insurance to all Americans and combat global warming while moving the nation toward energy independence.

The last time either party held 60 Senate seats was in 1978, when the Democrats had 61. Democrat Al Franken, who won the vote tally in Minnesota, would be the 60th but Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is challenging the count in court.

"Since my election in 1980 ... the Republican Party has moved far to the right," Specter said in a statement explaining his decision. "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

KNOWN AS A MODERATE

Specter said in the statement posted on his campaign Web site, "My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats than I have been for the Republicans."

An administration official said Obama was handed a note during his daily economic briefing at the White House that said Specter would announce he was changing parties.

A few minutes later, the official said Obama reached Specter and told him "you have my full support" and that Democrats were "thrilled to have you."

Specter, who had been one of the Senate's few Republican moderates, had a reputation for crossing the political aisle.

He caught the ire of conservatives in Pennsylvania last February when he was one of three Senate Republicans to vote for Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

Senator Olympia Snowe, another Republican moderate, said, "Many Republicans feel alienated and disaffected from the Republican Party," which has been floundering since Democrats last year won the White House and expanded their control of Congress.

Recent polls showed Specter trailing in his bid to win the Republican nomination for re-election and more popular among Democrats than Republicans.

A survey released last month by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found Specter got a thumbs up from 60 percent of Democrats.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, a longtime friend of Specter's, said the decision to switch had to be a tough one.

"It had to really tear him up, but he had to face reality," Hatch said. "He has a better chance of winning re-election as a Democrat than a Republican."

Reid said, "I welcome Senator Specter and his moderate voice to our diverse caucus, and to continuing our open and honest debate about the best way to make life better for the American people."

Democrat Robert Byrd, at 91 the oldest member of the Senate, said, "I am delighted to welcome him as a Democratic colleague. Arlen Specter gives our side of the aisle not only a numerical boost, but also an intellectual shot in the arm."

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Specter spoke to McConnell late on Monday and officially informed him on Tuesday about his party switch.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and Jeff Mason; editing by John Whitesides and Howard Goller)

Storm Clouds Gather Over Obama Nominees

Although the parties have changed places, the nomination wars continue. Senate Republicans are struggling to adapt to an altered political world when it comes to candidates for federal courts and senior Justice Department posts.

No longer able simply to defend choices made by a fellow Republican, as they did under President George W. Bush, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have turned into vocal critics of many of President Obama’s legal nominees. They complain that several are committed liberal ideologues, much in the way Democrats complained that Mr. Bush’s choices were committed conservative ideologues.

Same old game, but there's a new sheriff in town.

The current Republican focus is on a pair of nominees: Mr. Obama’s first selection for a federal appeals court seat, David F. Hamilton, and his choice to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, Dawn Johnsen. (By coincidence, the two are in-laws.)

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, has complained that the Democrats are moving too quickly to consider Mr. Hamilton, a federal trial judge in Indiana since 1994. The committee has set for Wednesday the confirmation hearing on Judge Hamilton, who was nominated only in mid-March.

Specter is a slime. He tries to play the center, and sometimes does (he voted for the stimulus bill), but he often moves right and lobs grenades.

But the attacks on the nomination of Ms. Johnsen, who is married to Judge Hamilton’s brother, have been more severe. Ms. Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University, was an unsparing critic of memorandums, written by lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration, that said the president could largely ignore international treaties and Congress in fighting terrorists and that critics have portrayed as allowing torture in interrogation.

It is incomprehensible that a lawyer would wrote an opinion stating that the president can ignore treaties and Congress.

The broad reading of presidential authority was “outlandish,” and the constitutional arguments were “shockingly flawed,” Ms. Johnsen has written. While her language was harsh, the memos have largely been withdrawn, and among lawyers a consensus agreeing with her views has emerged.

Nonetheless, Republicans have denounced her comments. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the committee’s minority, said Ms. Johnsen lacked the “requisite seriousness” to head the Office of Legal Counsel.

Cornyn makes Specter seem a statesman.

Justice Dept. Nominee Avoids Confrontation at Hearing

Dawn Johnsen and David Kris, nominees to Justice Department posts, met with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.



Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s ranking Republican, brought up comments made 20 years ago in a brief Ms. Johnsen filed before the Supreme Court when she represented Naral, an abortion rights group.

Maine Senators Break With Republican Party on Stimulus

Senator Susan Collins of Maine was one of three Republican senators who voted for the economic stimulus bill. "People don't want us to be the party that just says no," Ms. Collins said.




Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine.

Arlen Specter, who also broke rank to back the measure.

Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe are not close friends, but they have plenty in common. They both represent Maine. They share a centrist ideology. They are proper and genteel. And they can drive their Republican colleagues to distraction.

I believe only Maine and California have two female Senators.

On one of the biggest bills ever to confront lawmakers, the two senators, surviving members of the vanishing breed of New England Republicans, are wielding outsize power. Along with Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the third Republican who broke from the pack and provided a crucial vote for initial passage on Tuesday, the two Mainers find themselves holding virtual veto control over the legislation as it enters crucial negotiations between the House and Senate.

Specter I do not like. All politicians are opportunists, by nature, but he is really opportunist. And he can be nasty.

“I like them both, but I wouldn’t want them to buy me a car,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who noted the compromise engineered by Ms. Collins had produced an $838 billion Senate version of the $819 billion House bill.

Graham is a weasel.

It also reflects the political reality that the nature of a Republican from Maine, a state where President Obama received almost 58 percent of the vote, is much different from that of the conservative Southern and Western lawmakers who constitute much of the rest of the Senate Republican side.

As Maine goes ...

“I think it is safe to say that Republicans in the Northeast are not exactly the same as Republicans in the Deep South,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

McConnell makes Graham seem likable.

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has worked closely with Ms. Collins over the years, did not mention any names, but he was clearly dismayed at the talks and what they produced.

And McCain makes McConnell ... no, never mind. He's right there.

“This is not a bipartisan agreement,” Mr. McCain said Monday on the Senate floor. “This is three members of the Senate — none on the House side — who have joined Democrats for a partisan agreement. It is unfortunate because we are now committing an act of generational theft.”

Generational theft? What did Ronald Reagan do? And what did the 2000-2008 Republicans do? Gimme a break.

Senators Susan Collins, Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Olympia J. Snowe and Joseph I. Lieberman left a meeting on Wednesday after an agreement was reached on the economic stimulus bill.

That was in the morning. In the afternoon

Specter Attacks Choice for Attorney General

A leading Republican senator issued a broad attack on Tuesday on President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., questioning his political independence.

The senator, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Holder’s support of the White House’s stance on three contentious issues when he was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration suggested that he was too willing to do the president’s bidding.

After Alberto Gonzalez, who can seem too tame?

The sharp criticism from Mr. Specter signaled that Republicans have identified Mr. Holder as perhaps the most vulnerable of Mr. Obama’s cabinet choices. Democrats say they expect the Democratically controlled Senate to confirm Mr. Holder easily but say he faces a tougher fight than they had expected.

Sam old politics.

Republicans seem eager to use Mr. Holder to assert their ability to make life uncomfortable for the new administration.

Obstruction as policy.

Political advisers said Republicans hoped to come near or to top the 42 votes opposing the 2001 nomination of John Ashcroft as attorney general, but Democrats predicted that the opposition to Mr. Holder would fall far short of that number. Some Republicans, including Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, have voiced support for Mr. Holder.

Payback time?