Arlen Specter - straight man for Doober/GOP iniquity who always has to lose ?

[dusmcj]

Has anyone noticed a pattern where whenever there's some particularly egregious offence the Doobosity administration is contemplating, and they're getting public flack for it, they trot out poor old Arlen Specter (at least some of the poor man's hair has grown back) to deliver a seemingly principled but fairly feeble demurral from the party line, and then fade into the background noise again to let the offensive policy pass ? I noticed this most clearly in one of the domestic surveillance debates where he initially came off doing his tsk-tsk-tsk routine at his unprincipled peers, and then led the charge for what the administration wanted, maybe with the claim that it was the Congress' idea rather than Doober's.

The pattern:

1. policy X is desired by the administration & cohorts

2. they understand that it is offensive on grounds of principle to normal people and this is confirmed by initial public reactions

3. to take the issue away from the Democrats they prop up Arlen to get there first and speak some variation of what would be the normal people's response to X.

4. Arlen either is defeated by the administration and is allowed to surrender his sword under lights as an honored if sometimes misguided upholder of principle in the GOP (proving that they have at least one) or in fact spins the issue until what he's proposing isn't a normal-acceptable policy but in fact some variant of X.

Puppet theatre designed to neutralize the opposition.

Have I just decloaked the administration's bag man ?

[TwilightGardener]

1. Yep, I think you got it. Arlen is there to soften or distract from the blow, but the blow

will still land.

[Lugnut]

2. Arlen is a one-trick pony

He's also one of my Senators. He thinks he's fooling us.