Specter's Atrocious Assault on GOP Over Jack Kemp's Passing

Sen. Arlen Specter, who just switched political affiliations in the US Senate because he's reading the tea leaves showing that he'd lose badly in the GOP primaries, now makes the atrocious claim he switched parties because the GOP should have spent more on cancer research, which would have meant former Congressman and former VP candidate Jack Kemp would have continued living. Kemp died over the weekend after a prolonged battle with cancer.

"Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn't want me as their candidate," Mr. Specter said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "But as a matter of principle, I'm becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats' approach. And one of the items that I'm working on, Bob, is funding for medical research."

Mr. Specter continued: "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."

Mr. Kemp passed away Saturday, after fighting with cancer. Mr. Kemp ran for the White House in 1996 with Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.

Sorry to break it to Specter, but that's about as atrocious a claim as one can find. It doesn't even begin to bear any rational relationship to reality. It's a spurrious and bogus claim, particularly because federal funding for cancer research increased nearly 50% during the 1990s under GOP control of Congress. That's not exactly chump change.

There have been tremendous advances in cancer research, and yet there will always be people who die from cancer. It doesn't matter how much money is spent, as old age and disease will eventually catch up with every person on the planet. We can only forestall the inevitable for a little while longer, and unfortunately, Jack Kemp passed away over the weekend after succumbing to cancer.

Had Specter focused on his own battle with cancer, he might have had a point, but even there, it was tremendous amounts of spending on research and technological developments over the years that have enabled Specter to survive and thrive after his own battle with Hodgkin's disease starting in 2005. For all the tremendous medical advances, it still comes down to an individual case and the specific situations - whether the diseases were caught early, how the patient responds, and other factors that go beyond spending on research and development.

For Specter to make his comments is absurd and shows an abject lack of class. He should be ashamed of himself.

UPDATE:
Shouldn't Specter be slamming the Administration and Democrats in Congress for contemplating a budget cut to the National Cancer Institute? As one of Jammie's readers points out, After all, the FY 2009 budget was $4.83 billion, while FY 2010 shows a $4.81 billion budget - that's a net loss of $200 million. Specter moved to the party cutting the NCI budget? How can he live with himself? Then again, it was always about what was best for Specter's career, political affiliations be damned.