A Specter Is Haunting The Senate

Just about a year ago, on April 28, 2009, Senator Arlen Specter (?-PA) announced his party switch from Republican to Democrat. On May 18 of this year (primary election day), the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania will have their chance to say whether they accept him as a Democrat, or if they prefer current Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA).

Specter's coming-out as a born-again Democrat was hailed at the time by the national party as another stepping-stone to their holy grail of a filibuster-proof 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. The Democrats finally obtained that 60-member caucus in July 2009 with the swearing-in of Al Franken (D-MN), delayed for months by sore loser Norm Coleman's endless court challenges, and it lasted until February 4 of this year, when Scott Brown (R-MA) was installed in the late Ted Kennedy's seat.

So did those 7 months of unstoppable Democratic hegemony usher in a progressive utopia? Hardly. That could only have happened if the Democrats in the Senate were all unabashed New Dealers, which they're not. For every progressive like Barbara Boxer (CA) or Sherrod Brown (OH), there's a corporate shill like Blanche Lincoln (AK) or Ben Nelson (NE). Even the two Independents who caucus with the Democrats, self-described socialist Bernie Sanders (VT) and self-described megalomaniac Joe Lieberman (CT), cancel each other out on most issues. With all those existing internal contradictions, welcoming Arlen Specter into the Democratic fold did not win us the Employee Free Choice Act's union-friendly organizing rules, a public option in the health insurance reform bill, or a rush of agency appointments; the long-standing vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board were finally filled in late March by recess appointment, not by a Senate vote. The only one who benefited from Specter's switch was Specter himself, who avoided a challenge from his right, in the form of Pat Toomey, in the Republican primary.

In other words, Specter's party switch was all about Arlen Specter. It was yet another act of expediency by a person whose entire political career has been notable for its opportunism.

Single Bullet Specter
Specter's first recorded act of political expediency may be his most infamous: his creation of the "single bullet" theory as a staff attorney for the Warren Commission in 1964. You don't have to be a conspiracy buff to marvel at the story behind this portion of the Commission's conclusions.

The FBI had presented the Commission with its conclusion that presumed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had fired three shots. Three empty shell casings had been found on the floor near the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald worked. Also, the film of the motorcade taken by spectator Abraham Zapruder with his 8mm movie camera established a timeline of the shootings, and FBI marksmen demonstrated that the bolt-action rifle found in the Book Depository could only have been loaded, aimed, and fired three times during that timespan. Since there appeared to be three sets of wounds - first President Kennedy in the neck, then Governor Connally's torso and wrist, and finally Kennedy's fatal head wound - this seemed consistent with the three shots from Oswald's rifle. Three shots, three wounds, one gunman; case closed.

Except there was a third person wounded that day in Dealey Plaza. James Tague had been watching the motorcade from a sidewalk across the street from Zapruder. After the shooting was over, a police officer came over to Tague to ask if he was all right; his right cheek was bleeding. Together they found a chip missing from the curb, and concluded that a bullet had hit the curb and caused a cement chip to scrape Tague's face. The Warren Commission didn't want to hear about this story, because all bullets had already been accounted for. If Tague had been wounded as a result of a fourth bullet, and Oswald's rifle could only have fired three bullets, that seemed to imply the presence of a second gunman, and thus a conspiracy.

Enter staff member Arlen Specter to the rescue. Specter theorized that, since Connally was sitting in front of Kennedy in the limousine, the first bullet could have gone through Kennedy's neck and then proceeded to travel through Connelly's torso and wrist before finally embedding itself in his thigh. Tying both men's wounds to a single bullet freed up the second bullet to miss the limousine entirely and hit the curb where Tague was standing. The third bullet was still available to be the kill shot for the President. That's four sets of wounds caused by only three shots. Presto - Specter had come up with a way for the Warren Commission to stick to its lone gunman conclusion!

What's incredible about this piece of history is that Specter's theory was not based on forensics, ballistics, or physics; it was only based on Specter's eagerness to come up with a story that fit the conclusion his bosses seemed to want.

First Party Switch
Hot off his Warren Commission gig, Specter went to work in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, where he soon set his sights on the top job. When the local Democratic Party wouldn't let him run for DA, he decided his ambition was more important than his party membership (sound familiar?) and ran as a Republican.

During his two-term reign as Philly's top prosecutor, Specter hired another young ambitious lawyer from his alma mater (University of Pennsylvania) named Ed Rendell, starting him off on his own successful political career. Rendell, now the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, is naturally an enthusiastic supporter of his former boss' re-election campaign.

Anita Hill
A defining moment of Specter's Senate career was his character assassination of Anita Hill during Senate hearings in 1991. Specter had angered many Republicans by voting against President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987, and he was eager to win back their favor by supporting President Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas, especially since he was up for re-election in 1992. When Hill came forward with allegations of sexual harassment while Thomas had been her supervisor, Specter mercilessly attacked her through a hostile interrogation that painted her, not Thomas, as the one at fault.

Women all over the country were so outraged by Specter's treatment of Hill that it reportedly led to a record number of female candidates for office in 1992, as well as a heightened awareness of the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. Specter, meanwhile, had proven that he could be a loyal Republican; Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, from which he still gives us disastrous decisions like the Citizens United v. FEC corporate personhood case, and Specter was rewarded with another six-year term in the Senate.

Not A Loyal Democrat
Shortly after his April 2009 party switch, Specter attempted to paint himself as an independent-minded maverick, pointing out on Meet The Press that "I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat." Given his history, why would we expect him to be? In fact, he reminds me more of Joe Lieberman than anyone else. In 2006, Ned Lamont challenged Lieberman from the left in the Connecticut Democratic primary and won. Rather than graciously accept the will of his party's voters and retire, Lieberman instead ran in the general election as an independent, accepting money and endorsements from Republicans, and kept his job. Specter tried to avoid that scenario by bolting from the Republican Party before Toomey could defeat him in the primary, but Sestak has interfered with his plans for an uncontested Democratic primary.

Sestak is not exactly a progressive alternative; this former Navy vice-admiral would probably be closer in policy positions to Jim Webb than Russ Feingold in the Senate. However, Sestak has already done more for Democrats in his short political career than Specter. In 2006, during his first-ever political campaign, Sestak not only defeated twenty-year Republican incumbent Curt Weldon, he also helped the Democrats win a majority in the House and enthusiastically supported Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in her bid to become the country's first female Speaker of the House. During the 2008 Presidential primaries, Sestak took time out from his uncertain re-election bid to actively campaign for Hillary Clinton, who would have become the country's first female President had she won. Anita Hill would be proud.

Arlen Specter has proven time and time again that he is willing to do almost anything to advance his own career. Last year's party-label switch was nothing more than his most recent act of expediency to try to keep his job in the Senate, and even Vice-President Biden's recent campaign appearances for him can't convince me otherwise. Let's hope that Pennsylvania's Democratic primary voters can help Arlen Specter do what he seems incapable of doing for himself - put him on the unemployment line.