Isn't that how the line went before? What will the right wing media and the White House say? Oh right, members of both political parties have done visits to Syria. It's happened on multiple occasions, no less.
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.
Which puts the rest of the Republicans in an even worse situation. If Specter doesn't think that this is just as "political stunt," then it's going to be harder for the other Republicans to not support the resolution.
No one does sanctimonious better than Arlen Specter. He's truly one of the most pompous and arrogant Senators -- and he has a lot of competition. He was on "Meet the Press" talking about the US Attorneys scandal yesterday:
A leading GOP senator is questioning whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "has been candid" about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, while another said the issue has left a "cloud" over the Justice Department chief.
Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that Gonzales would have a chance to "present his case" but had some explaining to do. The attorney general is scheduled to appear before the committee April 17.
Tim Russert asked a lot of questions about the scandal -- but not one question about Specter's key role in the whole mess. As TPM Muckraker reported, Specter got the law changed to that allowed the Bush administration to by-pass the Senate when it replaced the fired U.S. Attorneys. Specter and his staff played a key role in changing that law.
Russert never asked Specter about that. Figures. After all, Russert was at the center of the Valerie Plame outing and never gave a full accounting as a reporter. He only did that as a witness in the trial.
