Specter Didn’t Dispute Story That He Vowed To Be “Loyal Democrat” When It First Appeared
The journalist who reported that Arlen Specter privately promised Obama that he would be a “loyal Democrat” tells me he’s sticking by the story, despite Specter’s high-profile denial of it yesterday.
Specter made a big splash yesterday morning on Meet the Press by disputing a Wall Street Journal story reporting that Specter had promised Obama he’d be loyal to Dems and would support his agenda. Specter claimed he’d been misquoted: “I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat.”
But the story’s lead writer, WSJ’s Jonathan Weisman, tells me he’s sticking by the story. And he says neither Specter nor his office lodged any objections when it first appeared after Specter’s switch last Tuesday, and hadn’t disputed it until yesterday.
“Yesterday was the first objection I heard,” Weisman emails. “Specter’s office has still not contacted me, and believe me, in the past, when Senator Specter has not liked something I wrote, I heard from him personally.”
So Specter wants us to believe that this story is false — even though he and his office stayed quiet about it and didn’t dispute it for a full five days after it appeared. If Specter privately fibbed to Obama in vowing loyalty to him and the Dems, and is now publicly fibbing about having ever said this, it seems like something Dems might want to keep in mind about their newly-minted Senator.
Update: Now ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, who also reported Specter’s promise, is sticking by the story and confirming that neither Specter nor his office complained about it when it first ran.
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Yep, Specter is a total douch*bag. Let’s hope that he is talking a tough game but votes with the Dems most of the time, like he did when he was a Republican. He definitely deserves a primary challenge and he just created his own ad. I am not sure who his political advisers are, but that tv performance was a dumb move. He basically called the president of the United States a liar. By the way, I never read that Obama said he would campaign for Specter in the primary. Does anyone have the exact language on that? Is it possible Obama would just stay out of any primary and campaign with the nominee?
Ok I just lost a long @ss comment that included formatting because off that “posting too quickly” glitch. Someone needs to fix that like yesterday. The condensed version of my comment is Specter was probably hiding behind the exact language of the quote and he didn’t dispute that he told President Obama that he supports his agenda. It was a failure on David Gregory’s part to ask the obvious follow up of “Well what DID you say Senator Specter?”
Lola, he didn’t call President Obama a liar, he called the folks at the WSJ liars. Major difference because Pres Obama never said that Specter told him that he was going to be a loyal Democrat.
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
In a town that is over-run with lying, cheating, self-dealing scumbags Arlen Specter still manages to stand out for his unprincipled opportunism.
The Dems deserve every sellout they get from this piece of garbage…
Is it possible that in all the hubbub he only just learned about the quote? I would think someone on your staff should be watching/checking these kinds of things, but Specter did have a busy week last week. Either way, sgwhite is right. Gregory dropped the ball on the follow-up: “What did you tell the president?” or “Will Democrats have cause to doubt your loyalty?” I guess we’re already seeing the answer to that one.
SG — lemme check in with my tech people on that. thanks for pointing it out.
We need to keep our expectations low: with Specter and Lieberman around I guess Reid is more interested in their actual vote on specific issues that in a philosophical debate. The Senate -” the world’s greatest debating society” – is actually filled with an assortment of self-servers on both sides. The voters are incidental fodder; they are owned by their fund managers (see Durbin).
New polling on Specter
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http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1327.xml?ReleaseID=1293
I gave this man the benefit of the doubt since his Party was maneuvering to have him lose the primary after he voted for the Stimulus. But, now I am not so sure. I think Joe Sesta, the Dem Congressman in Pa, should go ahead and challenge him. He said he would wait and see how Specter articulates his position as a Dem before he decides. I’ve heard all I need to hear. I think Joe Sesta should go ahead and run and I think President Obama should stay out of it.
Saw Rep Sestak on CNN yesterday: very impressive even though John King tried mightily to cut him off. This man actually thinks through an issue. Unfortunately a member of the BPTOTV did not have the patience to let him develop his responses.
I have two minds on this situation with Specter. On the one hand, my gut reaction to all of this is to disown him and vote him out in the primary.
On the other hand, if we do indeed kick him out, are we any better than the right wing purists that want to purge everyone that does not march lock-step to the party’s decree.
At what point do you say, this man does not represent me at my most basic level versus he must do everything the party tells me?
Don Kichline
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I feel you. I think there should be some core issues where if you are going to be a part of either major party you should probably be on board with. But I also think that the hallmark of the Democratic party now, for better or worse, is that we accept people who don’t embrace every single policy stance of the party. We have people who are pro life, we have people who favor supply side economics, we have people who want to privatize social security. Now as frustrating as that is at times, because of how our ideologies change from region to region in this country you have to allow some of those people in to the party if you want to actually be a national party. But on the other hand you can’t have someone who is not only basically an adherent to the philosophies of your political rivals but also will vote with them to obstruct his own party in the fold. Ben Nelson for as much of a DINO he is usually votes for cloture even if he doesn’t vote to pass certain Democratic bills. Thats where I think Specter has to step his game up. If he is against a bill thats one thing but he has to be willing to vote for cloture with the party even when he personally doesn’t agree with the bill. Otherwise what is the use of having parties in the first place?
Don is right. The cloture vote is the most important. With 59 or 60 Senators the Dems can afford a few defectors (or independents) on final votes and still get things done. Let Nelson, Landrieu, Specter, Bayh and Baucus vote against something, if they must. It will still pass. Up to seven or eight conservative Dems (don’t call them centrists!) and the agenda still moves forward. No cloture and we’re screwed. That’s why Arlen’s comment that he would not vote for cloture on some issues was so disturbing. I say, vote against some things if you must, but vote against cloture and get primaried.
I meant sgwhiteinfla is right. Sorry.
So in essence, vote party line with regards to cloture.
We should ask the Republicans for a simple up or down vote. That should give us cloture.
Screw Specter. Why do we even want the traitor in our party to begin with? We all know he will vote with the Repubs anyway!
Arlen belongs to the party of Arlen, just like Lieberman belongs to the party of Lieberman. Neither have any principals except self interest. Arlen is no Democrat and the sooner someone like Sestak steps forward and announces, the sooner real support can commence.
Greg, when Weisman worked for the Washington Post during campaign ‘08, he frequently misquoted people and often made up his own facts to support his skewed story line. I e-mailed him on numerous occasions with evidence to show that he was wrong or provided him (or the editor) with links to video or transcripts of the discussed issue to show he was wrong. Only once during the campaign did he “update” one of his flawed stories and, amazingly, in the face of video demonstrating that he was wrong, he didn’t admit or even imply that he got it wrong and, instead, re-framed things as “allegedly” or the Obama campaign was “pushing back” on the story that he knew he got wrong.
So, unless Weisman has a tape recording of Specter saying it, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if he got the quote wrong or just completely made it up. Had I known the quote origniated from Weisman, I wouldn’t have believed it from the get go.