Glad to Have Arlen Specter

I frequently wonder why so many really good people who are Republican party members stayed silent during the abuses of the G.W. Bush administration.  Bush used the 9/11 attacks as leverage to remove rights, condoned torture and abuses, initiated a unneeded war, and mismanaged the economy to boot.

I realize that the Republican Party machine played dirty with the politicians - threatening to remove party support for anyone who vocally opposed the President.  But, these guys must have realized that there was a moral crisis going on.  Right?

Here is some info from Wikipedia on how Senator Arlen Specter did speak out against illegal wiretapping done by the executive branch.

Specter was very critical of President Bush's wiretapping of US persons without warrants. When the story first broke, he called the effort "inappropriate" and "clearly and categorically wrong." He said, he intended to hold hearings into the matter early in 2006, and had Alberto Gonzales appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer for the program (though Specter declined to force Gonzales to testify under oath). On January 15, 2006, Specter mentioned impeachment and criminal prosecution as potential remedies if President Bush broke the law, though he downplayed the likelihood of such an outcome.

Arlen Specter has today defected from the Republican Party and switched to a Democrat.   I think Specter has been a great politician and given over a long career for the American people.  He has always been a moderate and frequently been unafraid to speak his mind whether it meshes with either parties current power structure or not.  (ie, he opposed Supreme Court nomination for Robert Bork, angering Republicans, and also criticized Anita Hill's testimony against Clarence Thomas' nomination.

I don't think party affiliation should be that important for a senior politician, proven to be tough and also moderate.  It's not like a barcode scanner says "Good Egg or Bad Egg", like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.