Being a political junkie I had to watch all of the talking heads commenting on the shift of Arlen Specter to the Democratic party. As is often the case, they each tended to get some of it right and some of it wrong

On the left, while I do not always agree with Rachel Maddow on the issues she is often quite entertaining in her analysis of the issues of the day. However this evening she seems to me to have taken a very odd two step in her examination of the switch of Arlen Specter to the Democratic party.

In her first segment on the switch she reviewed his decision and discussed things with former Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee and correctly examined the ideological hard line that some activists have taken. She made the point that by being intolerant of those who are not completely pure on the party line the GOP is heading to permanent minority status.

Then in her next segment she proceded to attack Specter for not being ideologically pure to the Democratic party on all of the issues. Even when Senator Casey tried to defend Specter she didn’t seem to be convinced. I understand that she is a liberal and that for her the ideal would be 100 Paul Wellstones in the Senate and she is entitled to her views.

But when you use segment 1 to attack the GOP for being intolerant of Specter because of his independence and then use segment 2 to be intolerant of Specter because of his independence sort of diminishes the impact of segment 1.

Still, she is often fun to watch.

On the right, Sean Hannity (someone who I probably agree with even less than I do with Maddow) didn’t even manage to get part of it right. He basically used his entire segment to attack Specter as being a traitor, someone just in it for his own personal gain, etc.

One point he made was that Specter only switched because he was going to lose the GOP primary. Frankly, I don’t know what is wrong with that. If I go to the Republican party and tell them I want to be their candidate and I want to work with them and they tell me to go take a flying leap, why in the world should I stay in the party ? If you keep telling someone to leave the party then why should you be upset when they leave ?

I’d comment on the reactions of other conservative commentators like Limbaugh and Savage but you can pretty much replace Hannity with Limbaugh or Savage in the analysis above and you’d get my comments.

Probably the show that got things best was, perhaps not surprisingly, Chris Matthews. Matthews is a Philly native and has a long history with local politics, so he is in a great position to comment on the switch. He fairly reviewed the decision to shift parties and the problems within the increasingly isolated Republican party.

He also brought in Howard Fineman and Andrea Mitchell to offer their viewpoints and discussed the details of the dealmaking behind the switch and the probable political future.

All three programs are going to be rerun later tonight so please feel free to check them out yourself