Specter: Out

Five-term Senator Arlen Specter, who switched parties last year, was defeated in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania last night. Representative Joe Sestak will now be the Democratic nominee in the upcoming Senate race, and Specter is out of a job.

"Sen. Arlen Specter's primary loss continues bad 2010 for President Obama, Democrats" says the New York Daily News.

"Specter Defeat Signals a Wave Against Incumbents" announces the New York Times.

"Activists seize control of politics" grimaces The Politico.

Et cetera.

Or, you know, Democrats just wanted someone who didn't switch to their party because he couldn't have beaten a primary challenge from the Right. For all his talk about principles, the only principle that ever mattered to Specter was winning—which is why the so-called "moderate" spent the entirety of the Bush administration as a complicit Republican and only developed a case of the oopsies when it was evident he still wasn't rightwing enough for the rightwingers in his home state.

Turns out he wasn't leftwing enough for the leftwingers in his home state, either. Guess that's what happens when you spend 30 years straddling a fence, instead of staking out firm territory on one side or the other (even when the fence moves way the hell to the right).

That Democratic primary voters opted to go for a reliable Democrat only looks like a harbinger of bad news for Democrats, or evidence of an anti-incumbent frenzy, or proof of "activism," to a media who can't see past their pre-written narratives about Democratic losers and Republican comebacks.

It would be laughable, if only this sort of irresponsible bullshit didn't so frequently write those narratives into reality.