Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter did not have an easy morning. At a town-hall meeting in Lebanon County, a conservative bastion that hasn’t voted for a Democratic president in the past 50 years, the Republican turned Democrat faced question after question decrying the country’s move toward socialism, the Soviet Union, and the supposed trampling of the Constitution. (Ironically, one guy was cheered when he challenged Specter to put the health-care bill up for a popular referendum, which is not how the Constitution says federal laws are passed.) But we expect that one exchange in particular will spread like wildfire on the Internet. It starts with an unprovoked physical confrontation that leads to one man, who looks like Roger Ebert and sounds like Jimmy Stewart, going on an impassioned rant right in front of Specter’s stony visage. It’s not always the most eloquent soliloquy, but lines like, “One day God’s going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill” are sure to fire up the anti-reform crowd and probably startle everyone else.
