The whole point of free speech is not to make ideas exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Arlen Specter and Jack Kemp

Arlen Specter has barely left the Republican Party and already he's making inappropriate, stupid remarks about his former colleague Jack Kemp, who died of cancer on Saturday.

Specter's declaration that Kemp would be alive today if he had voted differently on funding medical research is dumb enough, disrespectful enough and callous enough to make me believe that far right Republicans were correct in their "don't let the door hit you in the ass" remarks after his departure from the GOP. Read it here.

Nobody knows if a cure for cancer would have been available for Kemp under any circumstances. Such a comment does no service to Democrats or Republicans and is no doubt hurtful to Kemp's family. Pennsylvania voters, Democrat or Republican, hopefully won't return this crass numb skull to office.

Kemp was one of the smartest fiscal conservatives ever to hold office. He was a man of faith and good will. He was one of this country's few recent statesmen. And he deserved better from the idiot from Pennsylvania.

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