A POLITICICAL WEREWEASEL - ARLEN SPECTER

...if the only proper function of government is to destroy itself so that other social agents are unimpeded in operation, then Limbaugh and Palin make perfect sense.

Reid slips up on Specter voting with Dems
On MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports Wednesday, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, said of his newest Democrat, Sen Arlen Specter, “On procedural votes he’ll be with us all the time.”



I caught up with Sen. Specter today and asked him about what would be an extraordinary agreement, if it was indeed so. Specter merely smiled and repeated several times, “I’m going to have to talk to Sen. Reid about that.”



He certainly left the impression that Reid had no cause to be so sure.



When I asked the leader about this at a briefing for reporters today, the senator appeared grumpy and would only say, “I have talked since Monday night of last week on Specter. I’m not going to talk any more about it. I have explained and re-explained and the re-explaining is over with.”



Reid spokesman Jim Manley walked his boss’ statement back, however, after the briefing, telling Fox that the leader was merely “hopeful and optimistic” and that, “Sen Reid never takes any votes for granted.”



Specter drama just keeps on rolling…

Although to be honest, in the ranks of things you’d want to shed a tear over, Arlen Specter in exile falls only slightly ahead of the firing of Andrew Dice Clay on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Specter said he voted against the Democratic budget on the grounds that it contained rules that would allow Obama to pass his health care plan with only 51 votes. Specter has his own far superior ideas for health care reform that, he said on “Meet the Press,” emphasize “exercise and diet and, and makes premiums lower on that basis.” It is a plan so excellent that it’s a wonder Arlen Specter is not the president of the United States at this very moment. Still, you might think that he’d want to give the guy who carried his state by 11 percentage points a little bit of help on this one.

Despite everything, Specter’s sojourn in the Democratic doghouse did not last very long. By the end of the week, the party leadership was rearranging things to give him a face-saving Senate subcommittee to chair. This is pretty much par for the course. After all, Joe Lieberman ran for re-election last year as an independent and then campaigned tirelessly for John McCain. Really, he did everything short of picketing the inauguration, and there was nary a wrist-slap.

I hadn't heard anything about Biden's daughter being "coked up". I have however heard that his son recently returned after a tour of duty in Iraq. I suppose none of us here has ever had a relative involved in drug use. It's a rarity, only happens to Democrat politicians.

Any chance we can convince Arlen to switch back?

but the Democrat Party is wondering why they couldn't have recruited one of the fine minds that do exist in the Republican camp

Next week, a coalition of conservative legal groups will host a “Libel Lawfare: Silencing Criticism of Radical Islam,” a conference on how “Islamist lawfare” is imperiling free speech in America. Confirmed speakers include neoconservative foreign policy guru Frank Gaffney, lawyer Andrew C. McCarthy (who turned down an invitation to a White House counterterrorism conference to protest administration policy), Islam critic David Pipes, and… Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who will give the opening speech.

The event’s topic and speaker list are below the fold.


Islamists have launched a two-pronged effort to suppress free discourse on such subjects as Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding:
* By filing predatory lawsuits.
* By passing “hate speech” and defamation laws.
Victims of these “lawfare” attacks have included the famous and the obscure, politicians, journalists, analysts and plain citizens.

This inhibition has great consequences, for when discussion of Islam and terrorism are limited, radical Islam is empowered and Western civilization is imperiled.

Issues to be discussed on May 19 include: A close analysis of Islamist methods; the possible need for legislation to protect free speech on these topics; a comparison of the situation in Europe and the United States; and ways to prevent the United Nations from curtailing discussion of Islam.

Hassan Daioleslam (Researcher, IranLobby.com)
Alan Dershowitz (Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School)
Frank Gaffney (President, the Center for Security Policy)
Brooke Goldstein (Attorney at law, Director of the Legal Project at the
Middle East Forum)
David Harris (Attorney at law, Director of the International and Terrorist
Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc.)
Joe Kaufman (Chairman, Americans Against Hate)
Marc Lebuis (Blogger, Point de Bascule)
Andrew C. McCarthy (Director, the Center for Law and Counterterrorism)
Alan Mendoza (Executive Director, The Henry Jackson Society)
Douglas Murray (Director, the Centre for Social Cohesion)
Daniel Pipes (Director, the Middle East Forum)
Dean Reuter (The Federalist Society)
David Rivkin (Attorney at law, Baker Hostetler)
Elizabeth Samson (Attorney at law, Visiting Fellow at the Hudson Institute)
Barak Seener (Middle East Section Director, Henry Jackson Society)
Senator Arlen Specter (United States Senator, State of Pennsylvania)
James Taranto (Columnist, the Wall Street Journal)
John J Walsh (Attorney at law, Senior Counsel, Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP)

Quote:

...if the only proper function of government is to destroy itself so that other social agents are unimpeded in operation, then Limbaugh and Palin make perfect sense.

Better this than a government that subsumes all other social agents.

And herein lies the rub.

You and your fellows who are inclined to believe that humanity is a blight upon the wholesome breast of Mother Gaia, seem to believe that a small subset of this same gaggle of viral parasites are best suited to decide the fates and fortunes of their fellow viruses.

All things non-human are best left to self-organizing systems that bear no taint of humanity, but all things human should be controlled and directed by the fancies and visions of a small set of anointed ones.

The incredible irony: Railing against the temerity of humans in believing they are exempt from Natural Law, but arguing that their destinies should be molded and constrained by a few of the very species that can't be trusted to not rape Gaia.

Humans must be kept from sticking their noses in earth's ecologies, but it's all OK with them engineering society and the economy.