Unwanted Democrat of the Week

When he recently announced that he would be changing his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, Sen. Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania was obviously attacked by the right wing. In fact, Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), had these mature things to say: "For [Sen. Specter] to effectively flip the bird back to [Sen. John Cornyn] and the Republican Senate leadership, the team that stood by him, who went to the bat for him in 2004 to save his hide, to me is not only disrespectful, it's just downright rude. I'm sure his mama didn't raise him this way. And it's a shame that he's behaving this way today."

With that being said, I am sure that Specter didn't expect a hard time from his new party. According to Specter, Sen. Harry Reid (R-NV), the Senate Majority Leader (and another unwanted Democrat), promised Specter that, when he switched to the Democratic Party, he would retain his committee assignments and his seniority within those committees. However, the Senate voted yesterday to remove Specter's seniority, subsequently placing him at the bottom of every committee on which he sits. Not surprisingly, Reid's spokesperson stated that "There was no miscommunication" between the two senators.

And while I applaud Specter's defense of a woman's right to choose, his criticism of Mr. Bush's administration and his support of President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial, Specter will always be considered a waste of space by me because of the role he played in the investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As an assistant counsel for the Warren Commission, Specter co-authored the ridiculous "magic bullet theory", which suggested that seven wounds to President Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally were caused by the same bullet. This absolutely impossible theory was a crucial assertion for the Warren Commission and allowed the federal government to truly avoid investigating the actual conspiracy which resulted in President Kennedy's death.