Arlen Specter

CBS Ignores Arlen Specter Cancer Comments
By Kyle Drennen | May 4, 2009 | 2:43 PM EDT

Arlen Specter, CBS 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 supported his legislative efforts on cancer research funding, people like Kemp may still be alive and certain cancers may have been cured:

And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research. I’ve been the spear carrier to increase medical research. And I’ve even established a Web site, specterforthecure.com, to try to get people to put more pressure on Congress to join me in getting more funding. This medical research has been a reawakening-- the ten billion dollars. We were about to lose a whole generation of scientists. And now they’re enthused. There are fifteen thousand applications to be granted. If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine. Now, as the New York Times pointed out in a column today, when you talk about life and death and medical research, that’s a much more major consideration on what I can do, continuing in the Senate, contrasted with which party I belong to.

Apparently, CBS did not see anything controversial in such a self-aggrandizing statement.

Kurtz Sees Switchers' Media Double Standard: Shelby's a Deserter, Specter Exposes GOP
By Tim Graham | May 4, 2009 | 1:43 PM EDT
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 right in complaining that much of the media have "a double standard regarding party-switchers....When Republicans morph into Democrats, we tend to act like they finally saw the light, and quote them ad nauseam about how the Republican Party has gotten too narrow, etc., etc." But when a Democrat joins the GOP, "we concentrate on the tactical advantage to the party switcher."

Cannon recalled conservative disgust over the media celebration of departing Republican Jim Jeffords in 2001. Kurtz’s review of media coverage found a real lack of questioning Specter’s disloyalty to his party:

Thomas: GOP 'Letting Their Extremists Take Them Straight Down'
By Brent Baker | May 1, 2009 | 9:53 PM EDT
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 uninformed Americans to see Republicans and conservatives as outside the mainstream.

The assessment from Thomas about how conservatives are “extremists” came on Inside Washington, a weekly show produced and aired over the weekend by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, but first broadcast Friday night on the local PBS station, Thomas, Editor at Large with Newsweek after stints as Assistant Managing Editor and Washington bureau chief, proposed:
I don't think the Republicans would appreciate the comparison, but they're exactly like the Labor Party in England in the 1970s. They're letting their extremists take them straight down. The same thing as going to happen -- they had to disappear for a while and when they reinvented themselves they did it with moderates, they did it with  Tony Blair.
CBS’s Smith to RNC Chair: ‘Room For Moderates’ In GOP?
By Kyle Drennen | April 30, 2009 | 3:58 PM EDT

Harry Smith and Michael Steele, CBS On Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith talked to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele about Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter switching to the Democratic Party: "Alright, so you see red states going to blue, though, in this last presidential election...You look at percentage-wise, lower numbers of people who declare themselves to be actual Republicans...Where does the future of your party lie?...Is there room for moderates?"

Smith began the interview by asking Steele: "Olympia Snowe mourned his [Specter’s] loss earlier this week. Rush Limbaugh said he was dead weight, good riddance. Who's right?" Steele was unequivocal: "Rush. I'm sorry, I'm not weeping here. I'm sorry. You know, look, Harry, in 2004, when Senator Specter ran for re-election...he whined and moaned and groaned and convinced the White House, and Senator Rick Santorum, and the Republican leadership at that time, to save his seat, to help him get re-elected. So all this, you know, rank-and-file crazy noise about conservatism, he didn't mind it in 2004 when his seat was on the line."

Newsweek's Clift Examines Biden, Rendell Roles in Specter Switch
By Ken Shepherd | April 29, 2009 | 2:10 PM EDT

Eleanor Clift is by no stretch a conservative apologist, but her reporting in Newsweek on the Specter switch exposes an angle that the broadcast networks are omitting: the Machiavellian maneuvers behind-the-scenes to coax Specter to jump the GOP ship.

Of particular interest is Clift's revelation that Gov. Ed Rendell's motive for pushing Specter to become a Democrat was to shut down a potential Democratic rival for the U.S. Senate, Rep. Joe Sestak (Pa.) [emphasis mine].:

 Those who know Rendell say he really wants the seat that Specter holds but would not run against his friend. The scenario that was unfolding had Specter losing in the Republican primary to Club for Growth President Pat Toomy, the favorite of Pennsylvania's conservative Republican base, and then had Toomy losing to a Democrat in November 2010. The Democrat suiting up for that task was Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral in his second term, eager to move up, and at 57 years of age, young enough to stake a claim on the seat.

A Sestak candidacy would derail Rendell's future plans. Keeping Specter in the seat at his age, which is 79, makes it far more likely that the seat would open up in the kind of timetable Rendell would hope for.

NBC's Todd Calls Specter Departure 'Devastating' to GOP
By Geoffrey Dickens | April 29, 2009 | 12:00 PM EDT

On Wednesday's "Today" show, NBC's Chuck Todd called the decision of Arlen Specter – a Republican senator who has such a liberal voting record and has been such a constant-thorn-in-the-side of his party that he faced probable defeat in his own primary – to leave the GOP, "devastating." In a piece about Barack Obama's first 100 days that trumpeted his own network's new poll showing high ratings for Obama, Todd buried the GOP: "But for the Republican Party it's devastating, not just to their hopes of slowing President Obama's agenda in Congress but for what it says about the future of the GOP."

Todd then aired a sound bite from a Philadelphia area radio talk show host Michael Smerconish who advised the best way for the GOP to win seats was to "clone" Specter.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, AUTHOR, MORNING DRIVE: The Republican Party in the aftermath of the presidential race should have come to him and tried to clone him. They need more Arlen Specters. And instead they deride him as a R.I.N.O - Republican In Name Only.

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the April 29, "Today" show:

Nets: Specter 'Driven Out' of GOP by 'Right Wing' and 'Fringe of Party'
By Brent Baker | April 29, 2009 | 12:55 AM EDT
The evening newscasts on Tuesday night attributed Senator Arlen Specter's motivation for changing parties to how he realized he wouldn't win the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, but they also, just as they did with Senator Jim Jeffords in 2001, eagerly relayed -- without any challenge -- Specter's spin that, in the words of the TV journalists, he “had been driven out by the right-wing of the Republican Party,” the GOP's “increasingly conservative tilt” and “the fringe of the party.”

CBS framed its story around that convenient target as the Evening News showcased Specter's charge in its tease: “The party has shifted very far to the, to the right.” Katie Couric noted that Specter “acknowledged he cannot win the Republican primary, so he's becoming a Democrat. But as Chip Reid reports, Specter says there were other reasons behind the switch.” Setting up the same Specter soundbite as in the tease, Reid reported the “moderate” Specter “says he's leaving the Republican party because the Republican party left him.” Reid bolstered Specter's concern by asserting “200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans have registered as Democrats in just the past year. Specter blames the party's increasingly conservative tilt.” Specter exclaimed: “There ought to be a rebellion. There ought to be an uprising.”

On NBC, Kelly O'Donnell described how “he would be facing a much more conservative challenger” in the primary and “couldn't risk” losing, before she related Specter's rationalization “that voters who tend to turn out in the primaries tend to be on the fringe of the party, not a moderate Republican like he is.” ABC's Jonathan Karl highlighted how “Specter said he had been driven out by the right-wing of the Republican Party.” Then viewers were treated to Specter scolding conservatives: “They don't make any bones about their willingness to lose the general election if they can purify the party. There ought to be a rebellion. There ought to be an uprising.”
As Specter Switches, the Ira Einhorn Saga Deserves Wider Mention
By Tom Blumer | April 29, 2009 | 12:10 AM EDT
IraEinhornMugs

Ira who?

The establishment media is saying almost nothing about the man who co-founded Earth Day, and who also happens to be in jail for life for murder. Arlen Specter's involvement with the Ira Einhorn case is an important event in the party-switching Senator's career that curious readers would want to know about -- if the establishment media cared to note it.

You know they would be bringing out similar stories quite prominently if they existed about a Democratic senator switching parties. Look at what the Associated Press and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) laid on Joe Lieberman in 2006 ("AP Labels Joe Lieberman 'Democrats' Public Enemy No. 1'") -- and he's still considered a reliable Democratic vote.

Time Magazine recounted the sordid case history in 1997; it's a read the whole awful thing piece if there ever was one.

But before excerpting Time, let's look at two of the earlier paragraphs at John J. Miller's related National Review piece in April 2004, written days before Specter barely withstood an aggressive GOP primary challenge from then-Congressman Pat Toomey:

CNN’s Sanchez on the Concept of Freedom in Specter Aftermath: 'What the Hell Does That Mean?'
By Jeff Poor | April 28, 2009 | 5:17 PM EDT

Leave it to CNN host Rick Sanchez to unintentionally give us a moment of comedy in an afternoon cable news broadcast.

On "CNN Newsroom" on April 28, Sanchez interviewed Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., about the departure of Sen. Arlen Specter, Pa., from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. He asked the senator from South Carolina if Specter was correct in his analysis that the conservative wing of the Republican Party was squeezing out a segment of the electorate.

"You're shrinking the electorate to an extreme - to a point where a regular Republican can't win," Sanchez said, paraphrasing Specter. "What do you make of that argument?"

Media Previously Painted Sen. Specter as 'Conservative' 'Grand Inquisitor'
By Ken Shepherd | April 28, 2009 | 3:00 PM EDT

While the media are now painting turncoat Sen. Arlen Specter ( D-Pa.) as a Republican moderate who laments how the party has left him behind, a search through the Media Research Center's archives finds that the MSM have painted the Keystone State liberal anywhere from being a mere "conservative" to a traitorous Torquemada to pro-choicers.

During the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in October 1991, Time reporter Julie Johnson noted on the October 18 edition of "Washington Week in Review" that:

Arlen Specter took on this role as the Great Inquisitor. Some people [feminists] think he pilloried Anita Hill, that with his sort of low-blow hit on perjury, they're saying to a friend in Pennsylvania, who's been pro-choice, been on their side: 'How could you do this to me?'

On June 30 of the same year, NBC reporter Jim Miklaszewski laughably characterized the pro-choice Specter as a conservative pertaining to the abortion issue:

Open Thread: Specter to Become Democrat
By Noel Sheppard | April 28, 2009 | 1:03 PM EDT

Longtime Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrat Party.

Assuming Al Franken staves off recount lawsuits by Minnesota's Norm Coleman, this will give the Democrats and Barack Obama a filibuster-proof Senate.

As reported by CNN.com moments ago:

Pittsburgh P-G Editor Writes of Meeting With Senator Arlen Specter .... in 1974
By Tom Blumer | April 25, 2009 | 11:05 AM EDT
DanSimpsonPittsPG0409

One thing you can say about Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist and associate editor Dan Simpson (pictured at right) is that he is creative.

In his April 22 column, Simpson created a meeting with a certain Senator Arlen Specter in 1974.

Here's the relevant verbiage from Simpson's column ("Switch Sides, Sen. Specter"), the primary purpose of which is to lobby for the Keystone State Senator to become a Democrat:

The first time I met Mr. Specter was in 1974 as the state department desk officer for Rhodesia. The Nixon administration was trying to repeal the Byrd Amendment, which had America importing chrome from Rhodesia in opposition to most of the rest of the world.

Mr. Specter was representing a steel state and was not inclined to vote on the issue with the Republican president. I was told before seeing him that he was hard-minded and sometimes short-tempered. Nonetheless, he heard out the State Department argument, made no commitment and eventually avoided a vote. But he was fair and did not take the obvious position automatically. He was judicious.

There's only one problem, which was noted by Jim Taranto at the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web yesterday after alert readers caught it (bold is mine; link was in original):