Dec 21 2010

Waaahhhhhhh!

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 1:44 pm

In final Senate speech, Specter slams political ‘cannibalism’

Arlen Specter isn’t leaving Washington quietly.

In his final speech on the Senate floor, the outgoing Republican-turned-Democrat sounded off on the tea party, the rise of partisanship in Congress and the “judicial activism” of the Supreme Court.

“Defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism,” the Pennsylvania senator said of the tea party activists who worked to defeat GOP centrists.

Specter bemoaned the loss of a Senate where both parties seemed to be interested in finding compromise, and he was especially critical of lawmakers who campaigned against their fellow members.

“That conduct was beyond contemplation in the Senate I joined 30 years ago,” Specter said. “Collegiality can obviously not be maintained when negotiating with someone simultaneously out to defeat you, especially within your own party.”

He called the increasing lack of civility in politics discouraging. “Civility is a state of mind,” Specter said. “It reflects respect for your opponents and for the institutions you serve together.” Political polarization, he said, will make civility in the upcoming Congress “more difficult [but] more necessary than ever.”

The former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman then went after the Supreme Court, accusing Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito (both conservatives whom he supported) of “eroding the constitutional mandate of separation of powers.”

“The Supreme Court has been eating Congress’ lunch by invalidating legislation with judicial activism after nominees commit under oath in confirmation proceedings to respect congressional fact-finding and precedents,” Specter said, per CNN’s Alexander Mooney.

Whiner. Loser. Coward.

This from the man who switched parties because he’d lost the confidence of the voters who elected him.

Good riddance.


Dec 21 2010

The double standard rears its ugly head, again

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 12:41 pm

Barbour defends comments on race, but is the damage done to his potential 2012 bid?

“A pattern of remarks is a different matter than one off-the-cuff anecdote that suggests a man remembers the elders of his youth through rose-colored glasses,” Geraghty writes. “Watermelon jokes are appalling. Perhaps in that time and place the comment was common, but to modern ears, across the country today, it’s an unthinkably obnoxious and racially provocative remark.”

This kind of thing only hurts Republicans, of course. Democrats get away with murder…. or at least, former membership in murderous organizations. And “insensitive remarks” seem only to harm Republicans, too.