One Down, One to Go

Until the voters finally came to their senses in the last election, Pennsylvania has had the misfortune to be represented by two Snakes as Senators.

One -- Rick Santorum -- has thankfully been displaced. His former hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Santorum goes into the tank, described his new position in an amusing column:

[T]he think tank announced that as a senior fellow Mr. Santorum would be establishing and directing a program titled America's Enemies, which, as you know, is everybody who doesn't support President Bush.

No comedian could make up this assignment. In its irony and aptness, it is another proof that there is an Almighty and He has a sense of humor.

In this position, Mr. Santorum can come up with theories why America should be surging around the world smiting its enemies in a mad bid to alienate all its friends (by the way, "surge" is the word of the week -- it is the political contraction made by taking the "s" out of stupid and adding it to urge).

Although he may seem like a bottom feeder to some of his critics, Mr. Santorum will be in his element in the think thank, doing his blowfish impersonation of Winston Churchill warning of the gathering storm.

As for the other Pennsylvania Senator -- Arlen Specter -- it is only because Santorum was such a reactionary that Specter was not considered the worst of the two. Well, with Santorum gone, he now holds the #1 spot. He hasn't been called Chameleon, The Manchurian Senator, A Gutless Republican Worm and Wafflin' Arlen for nothing.

When he was reelected in 2004, he promised to maintain his "moderate, independent" position. See Did Arlen Specter lie in 2004 or is he just weak?. Right.

Well, as it turns out, Specter was the helping hand behind the recent purging of U.S. Attorneys, U.S. Attorneys Quit; Senator Blames Bush, that the Bush Administration has been engaged in. As reported by Paul Kiel, in TPM:

In order to replace several U.S. Attorneys with handpicked successors, the Bush Administration has relied on a tiny, obscure provision tucked into last year's USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act.

How did it get there?

Former Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) slipped the language into the bill at the very last minute, according to one of the Republican managers of the bill.

A spokesperson for Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who led the House team working on the bill, said that the provision was inserted by Specter into the final draft of the bill.

* * * *

According to the original law, the Attorney General could appoint interim U.S. Attorneys, but if they were not nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate within 120 days of being appointed, the federal district court would appoint a replacement. The new law wiped away that 120 day rule, in effect allowing the administration to handpick replacements and keep them there in perpetuity without the ordeal of Senate confirmation.

But amidst all the controversy last year over the PATRIOT reauthorization bill (the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, their use of National Security Letters to get information on citizens), the new law simply went unnoticed. Until now.

Specter has admitted his role, Update: Specter Admits Role in Expanding WH Powers, but, as Kiel noted in the follow up article:

Still, a mystery remains: Why Specter wanted the change, which arguably weakened the Senate's role in selecting federal prosecutors.

It's not such a mystery. In order to win the last election, he sold his soul. If he actually had one. After all, those names mentioned above were bestowed for a reason.

Tags: Law, Politics, Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter