Video: Arlen Specter – The Republican Party Contributed to Jack Kemp’s Death

This type of rhetoric is why Arlen Specter whether a Republican or Democrat will NOT and should NOT be re-elected to the Senat in 2010. He has simply lost his mind.

Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, said part of the reason he left the Republican Party last week was disillusionment with its healthcare priorities, and suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer.

Mr. Specter, responding to a question from CBS’s Bob Schieffer over whether he had let down Pennsylvanians who wanted a Republican to represent them, said he felt his priorities were more in line with those of the Democrats.

“Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn’t want me as their candidate,” Mr. Specter said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But as a matter of principle, I’m becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats’ approach. And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research.”

Key graph:

“If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.”

How can anyone, particularly a person weilding tremendous political power, get away with saying something like this. The statement is simply absurd.

It is way past the time that the voters of Pennsylvania retire Specter from the Senate.

Update:

Here are some figures from Heritage that suggest Senator Specter is just a little mistaken about health care spending.

During Republican control of Congress, federal spending on health research and regulation increased 46% after inflation,
from $49 billion a year to $72 billion a year, or about 7% increase
each year.  That’s almost the same rate of increase as Defense spending
got in the same period (48%), when we actually had a real war on our
hands, and not a political contrivance for excusing federal spending.

Technorati Tags: Arlen Specter