Snarlin' Arlen

Salon's Michael Scherer takes a look at at Pennsylvania's Senior Senator:

For Specter, such public dismay has become routine. Time and again, he has complained about disrespect from the White House, the overextension of executive power, and the limits of his ability to fight back in the current political environment. He has called hearings and chided administration witnesses. But when push comes to shove, he has also unflinchingly bowed to an apparent political reality, choosing compromise over confrontation and incremental procedural victories over significant, substantive ones.

[...]

Specter's posturing has caused some to question the political legacy of one of the Senate's most remarkable members, a former prosecutor of pimps and prostitutes who rose from the courtrooms of Philadelphia to become the Supreme Court's Senate gatekeeper, always remaining a conundrum for both the left and the right. In his 26-year Senate career, he has been attacked as a pro-abortion liberal who upended the nomination of Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's 1987 Supreme Court nomination. He has also been savaged as the mean-spirited inquisitor who defamed Anita Hill in 1991, after she testified she had been sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. In 2004, he nearly lost his reelection primary after a strong conservative challenge and was forced to beg for his committee chairmanship after conservatives mounted an effort to unseat him for being too moderate. In recent weeks, he has become a punching bag for liberal bloggers, who have called him a "bald-faced liar" and a "sellout" over his proposed surveillance legislation.

[...]

"The issue for Specter is: What does he think he is getting from this in terms of his reputation by just walking up to the line and flinching?" said attorney Bruce Fein, a veteran of the Reagan Justice Department. Fein has been working closely with Specter on legislation to challenge the numerous presidential signing statements Bush has been using to circumvent bills passed by Congress. "He is not going to be president," Fein said. "What is his legacy going to be?"

[...]

"On the one hand, he seems to know that what the administration is doing is wrong," explains Lisa Graves, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union who previously worked on the Judiciary Committee's Democratic staff. "But on the other hand, he is unable to stop himself from helping to ratify it."

[...]

"He is not an ideologue," says G. Terry Madonna, a professor of public affairs at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. "For Arlen, it's as much about consulting him and making him a player and putting him under the tent."

That description may be as good as any to explain Specter's latest maneuvers. As committee chair, he has held four hearings on the warrantless wiretap program and has increased the committee's oversight of the Justice Department. But when faced with White House objections, he abandoned his earlier bill, proposed with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, which would have insisted the president adhere to the current system for authorizing electronic surveillance.

But then Specter appears to be less a maverick these days than a man who is resigned to his fate and satisfied to keep the trains running. At the end of his Op-Ed defense on Monday, he seemed an awfully long way from the courage, clout and conviction touted in his '04 campaign. "If someone has a better idea for legislation that would resolve the program's legality or can negotiate a better compromise with the president," he wrote, "I will be glad to listen."

Good summary of Arlen.


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