Quote of the Day: Arlen Specter on the GOP

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Full credit to Arlen Specter for speaking out strongly against his former party. I have been very critical of him in the past, referring to him on occasion as a quasi-Democrat, but, on the #1 issue of the day, health-care reform, he deserves a good deal of praise. Here's what he said on Fox News on Sunday:

On the Republican side, it's no, no, no. A party of obstructionism. … You have responsible Republicans who had been in the Senate -- like Howard Baker, Bob Dole, or Bill Frist -- who say Republicans ought to cooperate. Well, they're not cooperating.

No they're not, and, despite various grovelling Democratic attempts to reach out to them in hopes of forging a bipartisan reform package, they haven't been interested in compromise from the start, and hence haven't at all negotiated in good faith, and instead resorted to opposition and obstruction in hopes either of killing reform or watering it down to the point of meaninglessness.

There used to be sensible Republicans in the Senate, but where are they now? Well, Specter switched parties and the rest either retired or were defeated. The exceptions may be the two Maine senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, but they tend to be split-the-difference centrists who put centrism for centrism's sake well ahead of doing what's right for the country.

Specter went on to reiterate his strong support for a public option:

I'm not prepared to recede at all. I think the public option is gaining momentum. I am not going to step back a bit. I am going to fight for the best public option.

We need more Republicans, and ex-Republicans, like Arlen Specter.

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Allow me to repeat here what I wrote earlier this month:

Shouldn't [Specter's support for a public option] count, sort of, as bipartisanship? (Seriously, given how narrow the GOP has become, so much a party of the far right, shouldn't "bipartisan" also mean anything that receives the support of moderate Democrats, centrist Democrats, and former Republicans like Specter? I suppose a bipartisan reform bill with a robust public option would ideally also receive the support of moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe, but the Democratic spectrum in Congress is sufficiently broad these days that it cannot be written off as narrowly partisan. Indeed, it seems to me that any reform bill that receives support across the party, including from the likes of Specter, ought to be considered to be, in a way, bipartisan, even if no Republicans sign up for it.)

Yes it should.

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For other Reaction posts on Specter, from both me and the co-bloggers, see here.