Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who embodied a vanishing breed of liberal Republicanism before switching to the Democratic Party at the twilight of his political career, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer, his family announced. Specter died of complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at his home in Philadelphia, his family said. He was 82. [CNN]
FIGHTING FOR his life for years against numerous physical assaults on his health, Arlen Specter died over the weekend.
People will remember him for many things, but for me he will always represent the spectacle of the John F. Kennedy assassination investigation circus. The “magic bullet” theory, which established that one bullet could have killed Kennedy and hit John Connolly, one of the most insulting assaults on the public’s right to understand the assassination of J.F.K.
Having studied John F. Kennedy most of my life, including a one-woman show, Specter’s passing makes me want to re-read parts of the Warren Commission Report yet again.
For me, this “magic bullet” theory was the beginning of wondering about my government, as I studied it when I got older. What it wouldn’t tell me, what it would hide to protect legacy or something else. What “we the people” actually meant, opposed to what it was supposed to mean.
Arlen Specter was a fighter, no doubt about it. In life, we are presented with many challenges, but when our health is assaulted you truly find out of what your are made.
Meditations for his family.
“For me, this “magic bullet” theory was the beginning of wondering about my government…”
This is when many of us realized that the government could propagate the most outrageous lies and was not interested in discovering the truth. It has only gotten worse.
I so agree.
ditto.
And let’s not forget the hatchet job Mr. Specter did on Anita Hill to grace us good ol Clarence Thomas!!