The American Spectator

Deborah D| 4.29.09 @ 7:15AM

Thanks for your perspective, Mr. Lord. I like the idea of "rebellion." There are a lot of conservatives out here cheering the exit of Arlen Specter as the Beltway know-it-alls wring their hands. Why don't they instead read the Tea Party leaves? The country is telling them -- We Want Our Country Back. We want a choice between a liberal and a conservative -- not a liberal and a liberal-lite. We want someone to actually stand up for the country instead of stabbing it and us in the back.

I say, "Bring it on." There's a way out of this socialist wilderness that began on GW's watch and has exploded into inevitability in Obama's first 100 days. Republicans, pay attention, if you want to win you'd better be on the side of America not Amerika.

Anthony| 4.29.09 @ 7:31AM

If there was ever any doubt that the professional ruling class in Washington is completely out of touch with us, Specter reminds us that there is no doubt. What's more, I find these moderate parasite quislings in the Republican Party beyond contempt.
Specter didn't even hide the fact that his traitorous behavior was all about him. He couldn't win the R primary, so he jumped ship, all in the belief that his remaining in Washington is vtital to America. Then he blames the same people who elected him for 30 yrs for his decision, not him or his actions. What kind of person thinks like this? Our system is indeed broken, as the gulf between the ruling class elites and us widens.
But it gets worse, that ignoramous from Maine, Olympia Snowe, said last night that she was concerned that she was afraid there was no room for moderates in the R Party, echoing the words of the NY Times and other leftist fools. Hey Olympia, what are you exactly? And your idiot fellow senator, Collins? Can you say Specter, (oops, he's gone), McCain and Graham?
The last time the R party put up a conservative for president was Reagan, yet these R fools in the senate can't see though their own rhetoric. Do these clowns talk to anybody other than beltway cronies? McCain was the ideal moderate and he got his ass kicked by an unqualified, resume challenged, radical leftist, yet it's the R party that's out of touch. These people are insane!!
We need to clean house folks, it's our duty to remove all these careerists from Washington, our nation is at stake. If we can't get a Constitutional amendment for term limits, we must do it ourselves at the ballot box. There is no time left to waste.; as Arlen Specter has reminded us.

Jay Molyneaux| 4.29.09 @ 7:32AM

Mr. Spector is moving, not from extremism, but towards it. The democrat Party as it is now constituted is the party of repression. For example, it seeks to deny Second amendment rights to citizens. It is anti-gun and anti-religion.

It demonizes those who have written a blank check to the people of the United States cashable for a sum up to and including their lives. The democrat party calls America's veterans terrorists.

It seeks to completely smother and repress differences of opinion. It is seeking now to criminalize policy differences and prosecute the same men and women whom it calls terrorists.

The democrat party literally writhes in fury over prisoners of war being scared into giving us information and insists on the murder of millions of Americans a year and votes money to finance this holocaust. It's called abortion.

So, Mr. Spector, you are moving towards the party of death. The death of free enterprise; the death of individual liberites; the death of our Judeo-Christian heritage; the death of the Founders America.

Be proud of your betrayal of your country, Quisling.

El Rey| 4.29.09 @ 7:43AM

Recall: Rick Santorum endorsed Spector over a real Republican, Toomey.

This sellout of conservative principles might well have cost the foolish man his own senate seat.

I wonder if Ricky and other 'pragmatic' Republicans have learned their lesson yet. Personally, I doubt it, but we'll see as time goes by.

JP| 4.29.09 @ 7:45AM

Going back t 1981 it is easy to see that the GOP only slowed the liberal course this nation has been on since 1933. President Reagan never could really change the course, and the 1994-1995 GOP congressional class just jumped on the train that was steadily moving Left. Much of the blame can be ascribed to the GOP Senate Caucus. Take your pick (Lowel Weicker, Arlene Specter, Lincoln Chaffee, John McCain), there was always a sizeable group of "moderate" GOP Senators who could be counted on thwart any conservative legislation, or judicial nominees.

Now that Congress is sprinting to the Left, politicians like Specter are less important to the GOP than they were in the past. In earlier times, these moderates always argued that moderates were the only thing keeping the Senate from going Far Left. Not anymore. Most of the moderates lost in recent elections; others retired.

Does the GOP really need to recruit men like Jeffords or Specter anymore?

Bram| 4.29.09 @ 8:07AM

I hope the GOP has learned from its mistakes (Chafee, Specter, McCain, etc...). When the GOP is the conservative party, they win. When they run as Dem lite, they lose badly.

Jack| 4.29.09 @ 8:36AM

Ugh, History bad. We make new history. No one over 30 matters.

Spector will build a new monument to himself. A new history.

John| 4.29.09 @ 8:39AM

Ah yes... DM-Bot... I guess you are tag teaming on Benedict Arlen for with TP-Bot...

Well as a comparison, Spectre was more like Charles Lee than Arnold. (go look it up I won't go into details)

That the moles are leaving is hardly an unhappy event. Your current history is skewed. The GOP has been losing for the last few election cycles because they have been chasing Liberals, and chasing away Conservatives.

The Republican Party, from its very beginnings, was a party that stood for principle above popularity. Abolition was hardly a popular cause in the 1850's. Reconstruction was wildly hated, though tragically cut short before it could be finished. Business reform and busting trusts was deeply unpopular. Most recently Conservatives stood athwart the Democrat railroad tracks of socialism, corporate statism (Fascism), and serfdom... and yelled STOP!!!!

Sometimes the train slows and stops, and sometimes it doesn't. The Democrat Party Represents the State as brute power. It has become oppressive, dictatorial, and intolerant.

It imposes its State Religion, supported by its debauched behavior, envy, and culture of death.

That Spectre decided to reboard the train of Mammon... so be it. He was rarely to be counted on, and even more rarely to be principled - beyond his own ego.

Once the GOP stops listening to the Democrats on how to run their political party, and stops allowing the donkey party to select GOP candidates, maybe we have a shot at winning again.

Conservatives of the world unite... you have nothing to lose but your RINOs! [smirk]

Cao,

Gian

Northern Rebel| 4.29.09 @ 8:58AM

This could have been avoided, if not for President Bush's "new tone" nonsense. Toomey would have waxed him in '04, if W hadn't kissed Spector's butt.
Good riddance Arlen, do us a favor, and take Britney Snowe, and Paris Collins from Maine with you!

Red Phillips| 4.29.09 @ 9:33AM

Is Peg Luksik still running? Does anyone know if she is a non-interventionist? Toomey's Club for Growth interventionism does not represent authentic conservatism and fails to acknowledge that foreign policy and the War are a large part of the reason that the GOP is hurting in States like Pennsylvania.

J W Wright| 4.29.09 @ 10:00AM

Ah, I love a good spring cleaning... who's next?

Olympia Snow?

Call the exterminator, this house has quite a RINO infestation...

Sue| 4.29.09 @ 10:14AM

So let's see. Women can abort their babies up through and including 9 months of pregnancy; we pay for mothers to have babies (as many as they want) with other people's taxes; we deny white males equal protection under the law under the "mantle" of slavery reparations and "female" discrimination even though it was "government" instituted, but someone has to pay; we deny conservative young people a voice on campuses, but let women rant and rave about their vaginas with taxpayer money; the government confiscates the tax revenues and then politicians hand it over to organizations like Planned Parenthood and ACORN whose very philosophy is to destroy the family and our Country; the Democrats are implementing the largest social welfare program in the world (free health care for all) when it can't afford to keep the promises it made to generations of Americans from 1933 and forward; they spend $330,000 flying a plane by our Country's monuments (Mt. Rushmore, Statue of Liberty, etc.) for a photo op. I've not been to either of those places, can't afford, it etc., but look, I can look at a picture of our President's plane right there! When our politicians live better than the people they govern and they place their livelihood over the people they govern, our Country will not survive.

I say goodbye Arlen; I will not weep for you or the Republican party. The sooner the Country is destroyed, the sooner we'll pick ourselves up and rebuild it inspite of politicians like Specter.

And you say the Republicans are exteme. Look in the mirror, Democrats. You're going to get what you voted for and it will not be pretty. Mother's and father's, grandparents, aunts and uncles will be denied life saving health care because of rationing; research and development in the private sector will stop; there will be so much fraud in the government sector, that nothing will ever get accomplished - no profit motive; we will all be driving toy-cars; no boats, no private jets; our heat and cooling will be triple the cost of what it is now; our lifestyles will be completely altered because of the policies of politicians like Specter, Shumer, Clinton, Snowe, Dodd, Frank, Durbin, Feinstein, Pelosi, Reid (graft-taker family), and on and on. These are the politicians who are raping our Country and a large segment of our population has their heads stuck in the sand. But soon, they will be choking on it because we cannot keep penalizing the producers in a society and expect to maintain the lifestyle of which we have become accustomed.

NavyBrat| 4.29.09 @ 10:40AM

This was a long time coming. I agree, Mr. Lord, that the people of PA have been lukewarm to Specter for a while. The fiscal conservatism you speak of in this state reminds me a lot of the same type of conservatism in my home state of Tennessee. Specter is no great loss, & other RINOs would do well to remember WHY exactly he switched. HIS POLL NUMBERS STUNK! Not to mention the self righteous, arrogant dismissal of constituents who pressed him on his vote for the dim-u-lus package. That one incident, that took place here in Pittsburgh (I think), sealed the deal on my opinion of him.

"A man who backbites an absent friend, nay who does not stand up for him when others blame him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter & for repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret - that man is black at heart: mark & avoid him."...Cicero

"A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, though one hardly admires the vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?"...Cicero

Anthony| 4.29.09 @ 10:40AM

Chucky Schumer told America the other day that the "world has changed", now that Obama and leftist ideology rules the day.
Oh, Chucky, you are so right, things have indeed changed, but from your perspective in Washington, you might not be aware that there's more change to come. Watch for it.

PolishKnight| 4.29.09 @ 10:42AM

As an ex-Pennsylvanian from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, I knew a number of Obama/Clinton style liberals and they surprisingly hated Specter more than Reagan!

The author forgot to mention another factor in all of this: Specter worked on the Warren commission and JFK is beloved by coal-miner-white-liberals who dreamt of Camelot. They think Specter was involved in a coverup and when he appears in liberal venues, they sometimes have to be carried out ranting Oliver Stone conspiracy theories . They loved to hate Specter and they felt safe doing so since he had an R in front of his name. Will they put decades of hatred aside to show up to the polls for him in an off year? Will his moderates who are notoriously dispassionate get out of bed?

In response to David Mathews and his claims that Republicans will become an "extremist" party. Obama ran, or had help pretending to run, as a liberal political moderate and a simple alternative to GW Bush, also a moderate. It's the left that has to hide their values under the bonnet while pretending to be something else. Most voters would be happy if a conservative told them they were going to cut government spending and taxes, but GW didn't do it. I am reminded of another great candidate with "Hope": Bill Clinton. Remember? He didn't have filibuster proof majorities but he was likable and he wound up losing seats mid-term. Let the liberal policies rot on the vine, and fester in the taxpayer's minds, until 2012 and then they can be easily killed or reversed. Just wait until senior citizens are told they'll have to wait 2 years for a heart bypass so that illegal immigrants can get free healthcare...

PolishKnight| 4.29.09 @ 10:53AM

Sue, you forgot to mention that modern women in the states can now legally abandon their children in most states as an incentive for not murdering them via throwing them in the trash. (It's not working.)

But it's not their fault. (Really.) They're star members of the Democrat/Leftist special interest club which teaches them from a young age that, well, their problems aren't their fault. They live in a perpetual state of anger that evil Republicans and the most evil creatures of all: hard working family men, are the source of all evil because those are the only groups left that the Dems tell them to blame because everyone else is under the big tent.

The average leftist (hello DavidM) is in a continual state of misery because they know at some psychological level that bashing Republicans and white guys isn't going to give them the perfect Swedish paradise they dream of but they don't know what else to do. That's what we're dealing with, folks.

John| 4.29.09 @ 10:55AM

Arlen Specter is a Democrat and always has been a Democrat. He used The republican Party to get elected and now that "polls" say that won't happen, he switched. Textbook polititian.

Rodney| 4.29.09 @ 11:02AM

Specter,Kennedy,Byrd, Lautenberg...
These buffoons are creating legislation that our children and grandchildren will need to live with and "pay" for..
To say they're a little,uhmmm,foggy and confused does a dis-service to those words...
They should all be gently rocking in a sun room somewhere, being fed mashed vegetables and apple juice, listening to soothing accordion music..
Get out already you bumbling fools.
Your time is past.
Better yet..
Get voted out in a landslide when the snap back against uber socialism, to be known as Reagan II, kicks in.
And not a day too soon will that come for most Americans who have been bamboozled by this crew..

Socialist| 4.29.09 @ 11:35AM

R.I.P., G.O.P.

Gill O’Teen| 4.29.09 @ 11:43AM

And Arly, yet breathing out warnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Chosen One, went unto the steely Mikey, and desired of him letters to Washington to the bureaucracies, that if he found any of these obumarrhoids, whether they were men or women, he might bring them handcuffed back to Philadelphia.

And as he journeyed upon his chopper, he came near Washington: and suddenly there shone around him the light from a thousand strobes accompanied by a catchy disco beat. He got a tingly feeling all up and down both his legs as they tried to dance in time to this miraculous music. No longer able to control himself, he fell to the pavement. Then he heard a digitally enhanced voice saying unto him, “Arly, Arly, why you so mean to me?”

And Arly said, “What you talking about, Voice?”

And the Voice said, “I am Barry who you contradict. Resistance is futile.”

And Arly trembling and astonished said, “Barry, what you want me to do?” And Barry said unto him, “Get up, go into Washington and you shall be told what to do.”

And Arly’s office staff which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

And Arly stood; but when he opened his eyes, he saw nothing. But his employees led him by the hand, and brought him into Washington. And for three days he couldn’t even watch TV. He would not eat or drink since no one offered to pick up his tab.

And there was a certain obumarrhoid in Washington named Telly, and to him Barry spoke over the intercom calling out his name. And Telly said, “Speaking.”

And Barry said to him, “Go down to Straight Street to Manny’s house and ask for Arly from Philly. He’s expecting you, though he is much confused. But in order for him to read your glowing message, you will need to bring him a new pair of glasses. He broke his when he fell off his chopper out on I-95."

Then Telly answered, “Barry, who are you to tell me what to do?” And Barry replied, “I am The One controlling your power cord! And though I’ve heard this Arly has been right nasty to my homies in Philly and he even has a warrant from the steely Mikey to handcuff all that call on me to save them from The Evil Bush. Now go! I have chosen him to speak my name before the bitter clingers who will cause him to suffer the humiliation of being a losing incumbent for my name's sake.

Telly went to Manny’s and entered into the house. He gave Arly the reading glasses he had purchased at the drug store in a nearby back alley and said, “Comrade Arly, Barry, whom you heard on your boombox while cruising the highway from Philly told me to give you these so that you can read his words as they scroll before you and be filled with the wisdom of the Blarney.

And immediately Arly could read and was electrified. And when he had received the meat of born alive infants, he was strengthened. He stayed with the obumarrhoids in Washington and began to preach Barry to the bureaucracies, that Barry is the Anointed One foretold by Teddy the Baptizer on the banks of Poucha Pond.

With humble apologies to Dr. Luke.

Michael L. Hauschild| 4.29.09 @ 12:22PM

Arlen Specter has not “switched parties”, he simply has “switched back.” Furthermore, he has stabbed so many people in the back so many times for so many years that starting the sequence of betrayal anew does not exceed voters memories, even when given his long treacherous career. The look of surprise on his face from the podium of his next election headquarters, primary or general will be truly Nixonesque.

Northern Rebel| 4.29.09 @ 1:09PM

Now is the perfect time to jettison the liberals from the republican party. It is the minority party ( for now), so committee chairs are not at stake.

Let them go home to their misguided, extremist brethren. I will especially wave a fond goodbye to John McCain, the doddering old "maverick" fool. Had he been elected, we would have had to bite our tongues, because he was from "our party".

He would have proceeded to do almost everything Barry is doing, except he would have replaced the porkulous bill with cap and trade, and all the other environmental schemes that the global warming fraud has inspired.

The watermelons (green on the outside, communist red on the inside), will not rest until they have dragged America down to the level of Europe, and the other third world thinkers.

At least we can be part of the loyal opposition, with "President" teleprompter at the helm.

Frank Natoli| 4.29.09 @ 1:36PM

El Rey's comments notwithstanding, Rick Santorum was a conservative's conservative. His defeat to Bob Casey was a statement as to the character of the Pennsylvania electorate, i.e., it's no better than my home state of New Jersey. And yes, dem's fightin words.

Mary Matalin's husband, what's his name, once said that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh [Democrat strongholds] with "Alabama and Mississippi in between".

What's his name was right. And with each year, Alabama and Mississippi dies off, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, all those white, well educated suburbanites vote Democratic, because that's what their 60s hippie college professors told them to do.

The end!

Paul Crowley| 4.29.09 @ 2:02PM

=>“Specter's old-fashioned GOP moderation coming in second.” [Jeffrey Lord on 4.29.09 @ 6:09AM]

Specter’s “old-fashioned GOP” was never old fashioned in Pennsylvania.

Specter began as an oddball democrat, Socially Liberal, in the present-day sense of the term, and then became a Republican. He's now returning to his roots.

It wasn’t only one-time democrats who voted for Nixon and Reagan (in 1972 & 1980): Due to Nixon being Socially Conservative and Fiscally Liberal and Reagan being Socially Conservative, and Fiscally Vague (by 1980-84 standards).

Pennsylvania Republicans, as was true of the majority of mid-western Republicans in the past, were mostly Socially Conservative and Fiscally Liberal (in the pre-1972 meaning of the term liberal in the U.S.A.).

These Republicans derived heavily from German, Lutheran, and rural stock (mostly suburbanized by the time of Nixon and Reagan, and undergoing religious upheaval).

Mid-western Republicans were mostly German, Swedish, Norwegian and traditionally Lutheran stock.

These republicans were very much represented by Eisenhower Republicanism: Socially Conservative and Fiscally Liberal (pre-1972 meaning of "liberal").
.
Specter’s “old-fashioned GOP” is the Socially Liberal / Fiscally Conservative variety of the old Rockefeller-Upper-Class-New-England-WASP branch of the Republican Party (that went into decline, 1964 onward, and which social policies, population control, abortion et al., were championed by the Democratic Party, 1970-72 onward).

Specter’s “old-fashioned GOP” was never popular among the Mid-western Republicans.

Specter rode in on the coat tails of Ronald Reagan.
Specter is what could be termed a McKinley or a Rockefeller Democrat (and always has been).

Specter began as an oddball democrat (Socially Liberal, in the present-day sense of the term), and then became a Republican. He's now returning to his roots.

Anthony| 4.29.09 @ 2:05PM

Frank, You are absolutely correct. To make matters worse, Jack Murtha won re-election after calling his own Alabama- Mississippi constituants ignorant racists, and he beat an Iraq war vet by double digits. How is it Mary Matalin hasn't come down with Swine Flu sleeping with Carville?

Paul Crowley| 4.29.09 @ 2:20PM

=>Specter

The man is 79 years old.

This “Hard Hardball” (whatever that is) business is ridiculous.

If he lives to election day (the nomination elections, never mind the actual Senate election), then he’ll be doing better than the majority of us even a right to expect to, life-span wise (he already is doing better, just by having lived to be 79 years old already).

Whatever his personal life expectancy, he’s way too old, and way past retirement age, for any man.

This whole business has a smell of misdirection about it.

NavyBrat| 4.29.09 @ 2:23PM

Both of you are correct. I live in Pittsburgh (unfortunately), not far from Murtha's district. The KoolAid is well ingrained into their systems due to his coziness with Gen. Dynamics (they have an HQ there), along with other defense contractors. I find it troubling that a region with some of the hardest working people I've ever met, relies so heavily on the guhv-ment solve their problems. The guhv-ment told these people that they were gonna save the steel industry back in the day. That didn't happen. All one needs to do is to look at this region to see that. Until these particular people wake up & finally realize that the guhv-ment NEVER delivers on its "promises," this state will continue to become even more blue. Hopefully, I will have moved back home by the time that happens.

"Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else."...PJ O'Rourke

NavyBrat| 4.29.09 @ 3:05PM

Gill O'Teen. Sheer brilliance! Keep up the humor, G*d knows we need it these days.

brutus| 4.29.09 @ 3:11PM

I miss PJ O'Rourke. Think you can persuade him to come back to TAS?

Helen Donnelly| 4.29.09 @ 3:59PM

David Matthews - You can have Mr Specter. He along with his now fellow democrats are making AMERICA irrelevant in the world. But, I forgot - no sense talking to you. You can't see beyond the tip of your nose

Paul Crowley| 4.29.09 @ 4:02PM

=>"The democrats want to raise taxes to pay for higher spending. The republicans want higher spending, for which the taxpayers will pay." [--PJ O'Rourke, 2008]

Arlen Specter is typical of the majority of American politicians today (April 2009).

As to the libertarian cant about government, then, it is false and an illusion.

Government Of The People, By The People, For The People.

Government administration is required by any country.
Government is not the problem, even the size of government, as such, is not the problem.

The type of government, and the purpose it seeks by direction of the country’s resources, is, or is not, the problem.

The present-day American government (i.e. Department of Defense and State Department) always does just fine. Far more so than has made sense in the post-Cold War era (1989-present).

Government Spending

The only whining about government spending (now financed by non-American financing and American citizen debt) from the now-libertarian-malformed right is against government policies that might help the United States of America, as a country, and American citizens (regardless of the polemic claiming the contrary).

But the Joint Chiefs of Staff have had no better, or louder, cheerleaders, in the course of the past 20 years.

Spare me the nonsense about the military portion (percentage) of the annual national budget (which requires the legislative and executive branches of the federal government):

The bean counter’s Creative Accounting, is an under-accounting.

Market Regulation

There's no such thing as an un-regulated market.

Market Regulation in the post-Cold-war era (1989-2008) has primarily been administered by the new Multi-National Corporations (MNC) (industrial, finance, business: It’s all Business now), within the restrictions of the reformed American legal code, provided by the American government (coordinated action of legislative, judicial and executive branches of the federal government).

The MNCs have had no better, or louder, cheerleaders, than the now-libertarian-malformed right.

Socially Liberal and Fiscally Conservative

The majority of the country is socially liberal, fiscally conservative (in the post-1972 meaning of “liberal” and post-1989 meaning of “fiscally conservative”) now.

The now-libertarian-malformed left pays lip-service to policies that it claims will help the American people (But has done nothing but facilitate government policies that fail to help the United States of America, as a country, and American citizens).

The anti-government libertarian rhetoric will not, lead to conservation of American freedoms, but has done precisely the opposite.

Present-day American "Independence.”

"Independent," as used by tens of millions of people, left and right, is nothing more substantial than living in a fantasy world of one's own mind (and examples of this, physical reality and cultural, abound).

Tens of millions of Americans Have Been Taught this rubbish and mal-formed by it.

Their “independence” is a delusion.
A population of individual people who do not produce even basic necessities any longer, or even so much as know how such necessities are produced.

Water comes from the tap (or now, pathetically, a bottle), food & clothing come from a
store, heat and cooling come from the thermostat, gasoline comes from a pump handle, houses and buildings simply rise up . . .

The closest thing akin to Dumb Grazing Animals that human beings can be mal-formed as.

Arlen Specter was never a typical democrat (prior to his change of party in 1966).

He was never typical of mid-western American republicans, 1966-94.

He was never typical of the Americans who voted republican, 1980-94.

He is typical of the majority of American politicians today (April 2009).

His socially liberal/fiscally conservative and "independent" ideology is typical of the majority of American citizens today (April 2009).

At 79 years old, Arlen Specter is Too Old for any of this to be taken seriously or being anything more than some kind of political misdirection.

danfromatlanta| 4.29.09 @ 5:01PM

In reply to David Mathews, if you think the GOP is irrelevent, fine! I hope you continue to do so, since you obviously never learned anything from the historic 1994 congressional elections that swept the GOP into majorities in both houses. Your socialist friends in Congress have done what they always do, overstep their bounds. The GOP will smack them back down in 2010, and slam on the brakes before we fall off the socialist cliff. I know you don't believe that, but idiots like you never learn anything from history, that's why you think obama's socialism just might work, and why it always surprises folks like you when freedom loving conservatives snatch the soviet dream from your grasp. Here's an idea, if you want a "worker's paradise", go to Cuba, N. Korea, or PRC. Leave our blessed country the hell alone!

Gill O'Teen| 4.29.09 @ 5:08PM

Barry was so thrilled. As a present from the neighborhood RINOs, he received a new play friend named Arly all gift wrapped with a pretty bow glued atop his head. Barry just wanted oh so bad to take his new bud out in the yard to show him off to all his friendly neighbors, so he asked Shelly if he could. She was busy flaunting her Constitutional right to bare arms, but still granted her permission. Galumphing with joy, Barry took Arly out to play. Arly was intrigued by an inflated spheroid object that Barry took great pride in bouncing up and down on the driveway. So Barry pointed to a hoop that was attached above the garage and flipped the ball, that’s what he called the round object, right through that hoop. Arly asked Barry to teach him how to flip balls through a hoop. Unbeknownst to Arly, Barry was the greatest basketball player of all time and had turned down a trillion dollar offer from a professional team in order to plant oak tree seeds in his old neighborhood. Barry suggested they play a game called “HORSE”. Since the object of the game was to copy the last shot successfully made, flipped through the hoop, by the other player, he thought it would be an easy way to teach Arly the basics. Since Barry was The Master, he took the first shot. Barry coiled his muscular legs and made a simple straight forward dive towards the hoop and slammed the ball through it with a flourish. Arly tripped and tossed the ball onto the garage roof. “H!” said Barry. Then Barry marveled all the neighbors by risking a back one-and-a-half somersault shot from a tuck position. Once again, he effortlessly flipped the ball through the hoop. A huge crowd laughed when Arly tripped over his untied shoestrings and watched helplessly as his ball bonked a poor robin chirping in a nearby tree. “H-O!” said Barry, because this game was scored by giving any player unable to repeat exactly a successful shot by his rival a letter from the word “horse”. Once a player’s score spelled that word, he was eliminated from the game. The last player remaining was the winner. Barry had mastered this style of play back in his old town. Taking his third shot, Barry flawlessly executed a back one-and-a-half somersault from a tuck. Arly hit himself in the back of his head. “H-O-R!” Barry brayed. Hearing those letters aloud, baby Elliot from down the alley came running to get close to the action. For his fourth shot, Barry took a simple toss over his head while facing away from the hoop. Even with his eyes closed, Barry’s shot went right down the middle of the hoop. Arly almost made this one, but his ball simply rolled around the top of the hoop for a minute before falling to the ground without once even dipping inside the target. “H-O-R-S” chortled Barry. Elliot screamed, “Where? Where?” Now all Barry had to do was make one more shot that clumsy Arly couldn’t repeat to win the game. He thought he’d try a very difficult reverse one and a half somersaults with three and a half twists, from the free position. But just to rub it in a bit, he started the shot by bouncing the ball two times in a circle around Arly. As Bsrry came around his new friend to complete a third circle, Arly uncovered a vorpal sword he had hidden in his pants leg. One two! One two! And through and through the sharp blade went snicker-snack through Barry’s back. Even though Barry was the greatest physician since Hippocrates he could not heal himself and in spite of Shelly’s kissing his boo-boo, he died. Outraged, the crowd charged Arly screaming repeatedly, “How could you? How could you? How could you?” Arly cleaned his blade expertly with bleach and flashing an evil grin simply said, “You knew what I was when you gift-wrapped me.”

Michael Tomlinson| 4.29.09 @ 5:22PM

Bye, bye Arlen don't let the screen door hit you on the way out. Oh, thanks for taking Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and those other dimwitted Democrats with you to the political graveyard. The good news is its BO's turn in 2012.

Frank Natoli| 4.29.09 @ 6:07PM

Ant-nee: thanks for giving me a good laugh. Of course, I should be crying. Regarding Mary's apparent immunity to swine flu, perhaps she could provide a blood sample to the CDC, the better to derive a miracle vaccine?

Regarding the pleasant fantasy that running as an honest conservative will go anywhere in the God forsaken Northeast, watch what happens with Steve Lonegan's run for governor here in New Jersey. Obviously you won't hear his ads outside of NJ, but believe me, he is the consummate conservative, right on every single issue. But I'll bet you a quarter that my fellow Republicans will kill him in the primary, and, failing that, the rest of the state will clobber him in November.

PCP Smoker| 4.29.09 @ 6:38PM

Way to much space wasted on that creep.
Now all we have to wait is for conservatives from Maine to get rid of their garbage. Maybe SC and AZ can get on the ball and eject Liberal Maverick and his anal poisoned sidekick Grahmnesty.

Robie2003| 4.30.09 @ 1:22AM

Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.
“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”

This is the kind of back stabbing we need to nip in the butt. Republicans talking about ditching conservativism for political gain. I don't know about you, but I've written the Club for Growth and the RNC saying I won't give anymore money until Graham apologizes for these comments or resigns. It's a disgrace to liberty. If he wants to get on his hands and knees and go beg illegals for their votes that's fine, but not as a Republican. It's not surprising based on the way he supported that Hanio faker McCain.

Darryl| 4.30.09 @ 3:17AM

Just to echo-Term Limits!!

mimi| 12.14.09 @ 10:30PM

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