"He was a person who could reach across the aisle, honor the Constitution, and try to work towards bipartisan solutions," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond and expert on judicial confirmations. "Not everyone would agree with that. There were so many huge battles he was involved in. Maybe eventually that's what did him in."
Through 30 tumultuous years, Specter refused to toe either the Republican or Democratic party line.
In 2006, Philadelphia magazine called him "One of the few true wild cards of Washington politics ... reviled by those on both the right and the left."
"Charming and churlish, brilliant and pedantic, he can be fiercely independent, entertainingly eccentric, and simply maddening," the profile read.
"From his days stamping out corruption as a prosecutor in Philadelphia to his three decades of service in the Senate, Arlen was fiercely independent -- never putting party or ideology ahead of the people he was chosen to serve," Obama said in a written statement on Specter's death.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
Trivia: Arlen came from the same, small Kansas farm town as Senator Bob Dole.
And while you think Arlen was a guy who could bridge the divide, I consider him a sellout and one of the reasons we are looking at 17 trillion dollars in debt right now.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
