Sen. Weather Vane (Christine M. Flowers on Specter)

So we shouldn't pull out the hairshirts and flails to bemoan the loss of a man who was never a conservative to begin with, and who obviously cared more about his personal survival than preserving two-party checks and balances that he spoke so "passionately" about just days before he jumped ship.

It's time to stop catering to liberals-in-moderate clothing. Most of those who defected from the GOP during the last election might say they did so because they were horrified by fiscal excesses of the Bush administration and the mess in Iraq.

But I think the real reason they high-tailed it out of Dodge was because they didn't like having to make some uncomfortable choices on the so-called "social" issues, and used economics as a smokescreen.

It's a lot harder to be a conservative than it is to be a liberal. Liberals want everyone to be happy. (Except for Sarah Palin. Her, they want to waterboard.)

Moderates, I think, don't care if everyone is happy, and secretly think that some of that happiness is undeserved, but they're afraid to actually come out and say it.

Conservatives think happiness should be earned.

Sen. Specter, you didn't deserve us. Bon voyage.

That last sentence sums up my thoughts as well. I rather we throw out the dead wood and allow the cream to rise to the top of the Conservative movement. I thought Ms. Flowers nailed Specter (Sen. Weather Vane) rather nicely, as well as the other wandering moderates. Conservative thinking is not, nor should it ever be, about compromise.