Arlen Specter's Charitible Efforts: Doin It Rong

Shameless. Absolutely fucking shameless:

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA)--two time survivor of Hodgkins disease--is no stranger to cancer, cancer awareness, and cancer research funding. But he's using his hard earned credibility as a national spokesperson on the issue to fight the disease in a roundabout way.

He's touting--and raising money from--a website called specterforthecure.com, which he describes as "a bold new initiative to reform our government's medical research efforts, cut red tape and unstrangle the hope for accelerated cures."

But the money he's raising isn't funding research grants, or advocacy, or treatment for patients who can't afford it. It's funding the Senate re-election campaign of one Arlen Specter.

[snip]

The idea is pretty simple. Specter is an advocate in the Senate for setting a $40 billion annual funding baseline for the National Institutes of Health--and if he's defeated at the polls, that bill will lose one of its most storied and influential sponsors. But if he wins, then the money raised by Specter for the Cure will, de facto, also support Specter's various other, eclectic legislative priorities.

If the voting against every Democratic priority and the cheering for Norm Coleman didn't tip you off, this should do the trick. At heart, Arlen's still pure Con, playing Con games. The breathtaking arrogance, the massive megalomania, the blatant dishonesty, they're classic signs.

I'm going to enjoy funding his primary challenger.