Arlen Specter

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter could find himself out of a job Tuesday night, if his newly-adopted Democratic Party refuses to renominate the 80-year-old incumbent for a sixth term. For the establishment media, Specter’s chief value was as a Republican Senator they could quote espousing anti-conservative talking points usually uttered by liberal Democrats.It will be interesting to see whether…

 Someone submit the Morning Joe java to Henry Waxman for analysis.  There seems to be something in it causing top Dems to experience serious delusions . . . On today's show, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claimed that the people of her home state of Kansas are "wildly supportive" of the substance of ObamaCare.  Unfortunately, suggested Sebelius, they're just too ignorant to know what's in the…

Most Republicans likely already think Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) is a joke, and Thursday evening he proved it when he took the stage at a Pittsburgh comedy club.Appearing at the Improv in a benefit for Allegheny county's Music Festival Fund for children, Specter poked fun exclusively at Republicans including Bob Dole, Dan Quayle, Trent Lott, Alfonse D'Amato, and Howard Baker.Proving just how…

At the top of the 8:00AM ET hour of Wednesday’s Early Show, co-host Russ Mitchell cited protests at health care reform town hall meetings as evidence that the debate was "turning into a nasty national shouting match." After playing a clip of a U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad opposing the health care plan, Mitchell observed: "Democratic lawmakers pushing reform are being jeered at testy town hall…

During a segment on Tuesday’s Newsroom program, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez and correspondent Ali Velshi bizarrely agreed that the issues of illegal immigration and abortion, as well as the constitutionality of the ObamaCare proposal, had little to do the health care debate, after citizens raised those issues at a health care town hall with Senator Arlen Specter.Sanchez led the 3 pm Eastern hour of…

On August 14, some of the nation's most prominent conservatives will be gathering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but former Republican Senator Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) won't be there.Instead, he's decided to attend the Netroots Nation gathering (formerly known as YearlyKos) right down the street.Stealing a theme from "Star Wars," I guess the transformation is complete (h/t Rachel Alexander):

As the confirmation hearings for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court appointee Sonia Sotomayor are upon us, the left-wing attack machine had to take a few last shots ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Sen. Jeff Session, Ala., and the Republican Party as a whole. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow explained the junior Alabama senator would take over the spot after Sen. Arlen Specter's…

The nation's gaffer-in-chief Joe Biden really stepped in it last week with his remarks about how Americans should avoid flying and taking the subway to avert coming down with the swine flu. It's safe to say the conventional wisdom around the country and inside the Beltway is that Biden really blundered.But not to Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom, which in the May 11-18 edition gave Obama's veep a…

Cancer is a terrible disease.  It is a slow, painful way to die, and the best of modern medicine can only sometimes beat back its advances.  Also notable: Cancer is a nonpartisan disease, attacking the Jack Kemps and Ted Kennedys of the world with equal impunity.  Only a true cynic could see cancer as a political fundraising opportunity.Enter the appropriately named Senator Arlen Specter, stage…

Following controversial comments about the death of former Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp by newly Democratic Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter on Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, neither Sunday’s CBS Evening News nor Monday’s Early Show made any mention of the remarks. While talking to Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, Specter suggested that if members of Congress had…

In his Monday “Media Notes” column, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz addressed Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democrats and explored whether the media has a double standard in covering party-switchers: “little attention was devoted to this question: Was this a betrayal of the voters who elected Specter?” Correspondent Carl Cannon, on AOL's new PoliticsDaily site, says conservatives are…

Commenting on Senator Arlen Specter's switch from the Republican to Democratic Party, Newsweek's Evan Thomas declared Republicans are now “exactly like the Labor Party in England in the 1970s. They're letting their extremists take them straight down.” As if that would upset Thomas and the Washington press corps -- whose very characterization of conservatives as “extremists” is only helping…