Was waiting for an article about how Senator Arlen Specter was upset that he couldn't pontificate on the Senate floor on Wednesday. I was watching C-SPAN when Harry Reid shut him down. Great moment. Of course, Specter has turned his bruised ego into some grand attack on the the Senate leadership. He's pathetic:
Arlen Specter is a senior United States senator who expects to be allowed his say on the Senate floor. So he bristled when Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, brusquely cut him off at the end of the Iraq debate.
“The leadership is setting a dictatorial tone,” Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said Thursday, still furious over his treatment the day before. “Senators didn’t get here to be pushed around.”
It may seem small-minded to bicker over a few words at the end of a 24-hour debate. But the clash between the two veteran senators is evidence of a larger breakdown in relations in the Senate, a deterioration in cooperation that is hobbling the Senate’s ability to get things done. The situation is not likely to improve with a presidential election on the horizon.
The breakdown in the Senate isn't about Arlen Specter's ego. Or about presidential elections. It's about the Iraq war. It's about Senators like Arlen Specter who have protected and enabled George Bush for the past five years.
True to form, Specter made this all about his fragile ego. You'd think Senators would really be more concerned about the thousands of dead soldiers and the tens of thousands who have been injured. Not Specter.
Harry Reid should keep smacking around those GOP Senators who want to keep the war going. He's doing it for the rest of America.
No doubt Specter misses the gentile days of a vice president coming to the floor and swearing at senators that don't bow down. It is an unfair world, he used to be able to pontificate on and on. But they won't let him. So sad.
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