Arlen Specter breaks with Obama... Ow! my head hurts

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I haven't seen it discussed here, in all the excitement, but the wildest political story of the week is Democratic (sic) Senator Arlen Specter challenging President Obama on Afghanistan... from the left.

I call shenanigans... how did Arlen Specter get to my left on the war?

It appears that nothing focuses the mind like a Democratic primary challenger.

[sfwriter]

1. LOL... Great laugh at that...

Poor Obama He has teh hardest job as president in a century or more.

[ShortnFiery]

2. Yes, but good luck for empathy as he continues to warmonger resulting in

more senseless American Bloodshed. :grr:

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[ShortnFiery]

8. Yes, more AMERICAN bloodshed - that's what Obama is ushering in. It's vile. eom

[phleshdef]

13. Oooo, ushering in!!! **spooky fingers**

[Cha]

18. And, nothing to do with reality.

[SIMPLYB1980]

11. DAMN HIM TO HELLLLL!!!!111!

AND THE MIC TOO!!!!11!



:mad:

[Oregone]

3. And he just made it harder

[HughMoran]

4. Yeah, this was tossed about last night - oh, the irony

I like it - this is an interesting time in politics - Obama really is driving the debate again and I like it.

[polichick]

5. Sestak approves of the war escalation, right? nt

[SPedigrees]

7. Specter has his own agenda and it changes with whatever

self-serving opportunities come his way. I wouldn't begin to guess at his twisted motives.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Nah, his twisted motives are easy to guess

He just wants to stay in the Senate.

He would campaign in a chicken costume if he thought it would help him stay in the Senate.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

12. Hell, he'd dress as Crackers The Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken if it

meant another term.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

10. I have a feeling that if Rep. Sestak had opposed the escalation Specter would

have supported it. Naw! I'm probably just being too cynical again.

[sofa king]

14. Maybe he's to the left of you because he knows how @#$% things really are.

He's tight with the Committees on Appropriations, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Veterans Affairs. He saw that war get cooked up, he knows it was stalled for political reasons, he knows it was a money funnel for war profiteers, he knows the CIA controls the opium now, and he knows the veterans returning home are in deep, deep trouble.

Whether or not Arlen Specter even has a conscience left after facilitating all of those things, I don't know.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. Or maybe he is running for office

Specter's action is wholly political and in the context of seeking to get to the left of his challenger in the Dem primary, not to the left of me.

Naked politics. That's all.

I know you want to rage against the Afghanistan policy, but I'm a terrible target. Find an actual supporter of it to rage on. I am ambivalent, leaning slightly against.

[sofa king]

20. Oh no, not raging at you.

Sorry if I gave that impression. My only point is that if Specter had any shred of decency, he had all of the information needed to be outraged by about 2003. In practice he actually used his Senate Committee to try to bring some rationality to the question, but he didn't do a very good job.

Now, he desperately needs the aura of respectability, so he goes back and cherry-picks the public statements of doubt that he occasionally offered to underpin his new position--never mind the fact that he made those statements while he was helping to construct the disaster.

That may be the only motivation for splitting to the left, as you suggest, or it may be that his entire career trajectory over the past eight years has been shaped by his conscience (which I also doubt), or more likely, it's a combination of all the morally and ethically cloudy decisions he's endorsed over his political career.

[IndianaGreen]

16. Joe Lieberman supports Obama's war

I guess that balances the two Republican senators.

[ClarkUSA]

17. Sestak is a warmonger who lost my vote. Spector is a real liberal Democrat who gets it.

That's what every PA DUer who is loudly against Pres. Obama's decision on Afghanistan should be saying and
doing if they're not total hypocrites, right?

:shrug:

[AlinPA]

19. Specter supported Palin in the election. That does it for me. Sestak is my choice. nt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvu0jD_T4Yo

[Orsino]

21. Specter couldn't get to the left if a corporate jet flew him there. n/t