And Then They Came For Arlen Specter:
The Rude Pundit has no pity for Arlen Specter. Just after being re-elected, the pro-choice Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, who thought he would cruise to the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, "When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely," citing the reality of the Democratic filibuster against such nominees to the Supreme Court. Oh, what a shitstorm swirled among the righteous in the Christian conservative wing of the conservative party, flush from their success in the presidential election, as well as their success in electing right-wing lunatics like Tom Coburn and Jim Demint to the Senate. It's time for their due, these righteous believe, and their due is to overturn Roe v. Wade and bathe in the corrupt blood of women who get illegal abortions.

Specter, who faced a strong challenge from a hardcore conservative in the Republican primaries, has unleashed the vicious anger of the right, who are busy shifting the meaning of "conservative" further and further from any semblance of a center. "It's difficult to imagine very many weeping were the judiciary chairman's gavel pried from his liberal fingers," wrote Deroy Murdock, house negro at the National Review. Anti-abortion activists are calling for Specter to be stripped, beaten, tarred, feathered, and sent to the hinterlands of a Subcommittee on Caribou Killing.

Specter could have fought back - he could have made a case for the independence of the legislative branch from the executive. He could have said more strongly that he was talking about the reality of dealing with an angry Democratic minority. Oh, how strong and mighty he could have stood for ideals and moderation. Instead, Specter was paid a visit by Karl Rove's Sodomizin' Stormtroopers. God, how the sphincters of Republicans ache at the thought of the black-clad SS and their foot-long black dildos, how the alphabet streets of D.C. are filled nightly with the moans of would-be dissenters from the Bush agenda who are raped back into line with just a wave of Rove's corpulent hand. It took one night of abuse with the sandpapered rough phalluses before Specter put on the Shirley Temple dress and went on the gabfests to lick his giant lollipop about what good widdle girl he would be. Isn't he adorable on CNN's Inside Politics, saying, "I've supported all of President Bush's nominees in committee and on the floor," followed with a stark admission of his bitchery, "I think I can help the president"? Wasn't he a sweetie pie on Face the Nation? Yep, Specter dancing around and showing his cute panties to everyone is a warning to anyone who dares not toe the Bush line.

In the wake of the coronation of George Bush as the biggest marionette of puppet master Karl Rove, there's something really weird going on among so-called "moderate" Republicans, which, in real terms, means a Republican who thinks that decimating the economy to badly run a war and then waste time discussing why two men shouldn't get married is perhaps not the best use of the public will.

On Bill Maher's Real Time last Friday, much has been discussed about noted anal sex afficionado Andrew Sullivan's bizarre act of rubbing his ass on live television, perhaps prepping for his evening. Less has been made of both the conservative and gay (did you know he's gay? No, really, Sullivan loves cock) writer and the Republican former Senator Alan Simpson acting absolutely batshit insane. When Maher attempted to find out from these moderate Republicans why they think the Democrats lost, both acted as if they had not only lost the election, but their minds as well. Here's Simpson, after Maher had barely spoken: "[Y]ou’re making fun of Americans who have some religious bent or a faith. Keep doing that and your people will never win an election. Because whether you and I like it or not, this is the only country on the face of the earth that was founded because of religious persecution and a belief in God. That’s why they left Europe. So keep making fun of them. Keep making fun of the gays and the lesbians, pulling people in, tearing people up, thinking that Hollywood has all the brains in America, from people who are making millions of bucks on one movie and telling the rest of the people, and making fun of them, and you’ll never make it, never make it." And, later, in the panel discussion, here's Sullivan (who is, in case you haven't heard, gay), "[T]he reason they won, partly, was because people are tired of being demeaned. Don’t demean people and expect them to vote for you . . . we must appeal to the best in them, not push them into a corner and expect the worst of them." Fuck, don't just confine this to an HBO show. David Brooks can't stop explaining what Democrats don't seem to understand.

Here's what's going on, with Specter, with elected and non-elected so-called "moderates": they wanted John Kerry to win. And they're angry as hell at Democrats for blowing what should have been a no-brainer election. Now, the moderates are in the position of watching their party shift further and further to the scary right, and they have a couple of choices: they can be party loyalists, but stand up for principle, like say a John McCain; they can stand on principle against the Bush administration and the further rightward shift of the Republican agenda; or they can leave the Republican Party, either as independents or as Democrats (who, as we know, are what Republicans were about thirty years ago). But now that the religious right has tasted the sweet tang of blood, they want to feed on the whole hog. They are bloated with power now, and, as the publicly buggered Arlen Specter has learned, any step outside of their evangelical path is going to bring their mighty deluded wrath.

The moderates have seen this purging coming since the Reagan administration. They thought they could hold it off. They thought it would end once the far right killed all the liberals they could get their holy hands on. They thought it would end once they demonized the entire Democratic Party. But Specter, Collins, Hagel, and others know: it won't end until only the righteous rule. And what a godly kingdom that will be. But the Rude Pundit has no pity for the moderates. They made deals with the Devil, and the Devil always gets paid.