With age comes wisdom: Sen. Arlen Specter switches parties

Longtime Republican stalwart Arlen Specter, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania announced today that he is switching parties and will henceforth be affiliated with the Democratic Party.

He said:

"As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party."

There's few things I love more than seeing a party hijacked by neoconservative, regressive ideologues alienating their own senior statesmen. Now, as soon as Al Franken is seated as the Senator from Minnesota, we'll have that magical number of 60 seats.

And as Republicans try to tap into populism with their messaging, it would appear that even after the election, the majority of Americans, and a Republican Senator, are seeing the light and making the change to the party that has the future of America in mind - not the past.

The First 100 Days: Bipartisanship? Of course not.

CNN ran a story today on Obama's first 100 days in office, and most notably commented on his failed efforts at promoting bipartisanship. While I think that the notion or the spirit of bipartisanship is a good idea, at this point in American politics, I don't think it's a viable campaign promise. There is so much intense, emotionally-driven rhetoric (on both sides of the aisle), that any effort to foster more bipartisanship is moot from the get go.

That is not to say that Americans don't pull together when necessary, or that we don't have the same goals - we all want what's best for the country, we just disagree on how to get it. And in that, we have the beauty of our republic.

But I don't think it should be Obama's job to promote bipartisanship. He won the election, he sets the rules.

Think back to eight years ago - Bush had been appointed President. There was no effort to promote bipartisanship. The GOP ran the show, ran it into the ground, and left liberals with nothing but a big shit sandwich to eat. When we questioned the President, we were called un-American and unpatriotic. We were told that questioning or dissenting against a war-time President would "embolden the enemy."

But somehow - that's changed now? Somehow, now it's okay to denegrate the President because it's pro-American to do so? It's kosh to talk about seccession? Hardly. Conservatives and regressives in this country need to understand that when the man they didn't like wins an election, he's probably going to do a few things they don't like. The shoe is on the other foot now, and after eight years of GOP use and abuse, it's starting to stink.

The Democrats pushed through a lot of quality items in the first 100 days, reversed a lot of regressive and backwards Bush-era errors, and made some great progressive strides - the S-CHIP improvements, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the stimulus package to name a few.

I don't think that the measure of Obama''s first 100 days will be how bipartisan it was - the country is in an unprecedented, extremely dire state. Conventional politics are not applicable. And as we teeter on the precipace of disaster, I'm glad we've got a President who's thinking forward, not backward. History will judge the effectiveness of his reactions to this crisis. Let's remember - the New Deal wasn't the most popular project at it's inception either.