10.14.12
How not to be remembered
The last public ride of Arlen Specter, who died today, was facing the wrath of the nascent Tea Party deep inna heart of Pennsy Dutch country, where I grew up. He was among the first of the moderates to be run out of town.
“Specter startled fellow senators in April 2009 when he announced he was switching to the Democratic side, saying he found himself ‘increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy,'” reads Specter’s obituary at the LA Times.
Looking back from 2012, “increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy” doesn’t quite capture the Zeitgeist.
In 2009 Craig Miller of Lebanon, PA, confronted Specter, then a “new” Democrat, at a town hall meeting. It made great television and went nationwide, a GOP rally point for virulent opposition to the Obama administration’s plan to rework the health care system.
Miller was incoherent, then and in later television appearances. He couldn’t express, even in a basic way, the specific nature of his gripes other than to rage over alleged violation of the Constitution. However, his anger was very real. Three years on, it’s still visceral. It wilted and ultimately destroyed a gravely ill Arlen Specter who was unprepared for it. Craig Miller, and everyone else, deserved much better.
The outburst, infamous in the genesis of the Tea Party, was emblematic of the lack of Democratic leadership and its choices of wan uninspiring ruling class pols so used to being surrounded by sycophants and legal bribe-masters they can’t engage with people outside Washington in any way. After having been given the keys to power at a time so fraught in American history, they decided being empty unresponsive suits was most prudent.
With Hey Craig Man! I realized it was impossible to write any lyrical narrative that fit the tableau. The only things that worked were non sequiturs and balderdash about heevahavas, nudists, poozle, on your floor, outside your door, plus Pennsylvania Dutch-isms. There was nothing you could take away from the event except failure.