Arlen Specter, Republican Bichon Frise

Perhaps the most salient characteristic of prominent Republicans is their set-your-watch predicatability. Team Dubya will bash gays every two years. Tom DeLay will shake down every lobbyist, fundie and bigot within a hundred miles. And yipping lapdog Arlen Specter, the ghost of Republican conscience past, will bark unequivocal outrage at the Administration's ongoing salvage operation, in which it sells the Constitution for scrap, before meekly lowering his head and tail and curling up at his master's feet.

I've had on open browser window for a couple of days now, intending to note Specter's last demonstration of his obedience-school manners.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Tuesday he will hold off subpoenaing the telecommunications chiefs while he works with the White House on his legislation that would ask a secretive federal court to review the constitutionality of Bush's surveillance operations.

A mere two days later, this aged Republican Bichon Frise is yapping again.

In a terse and highly unusual letter to Vice President Cheney, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) today rejected the Bush administration’s insistence that a secret wire tapping program being conducted on U.S. civilians by the National Security Agency is legal, complaining that efforts by the White House to stonewall Congressional inquiries into the program “denigrates the constitutional authority and responsibility of the Congress and specifically the Judiciary Committee to conduct oversight on constitutional issues," ROLL CALL reports Wednesday.

This nonsense has simply played out too many times. Remember Specter's claim of independence on Roe v. Wade when he was up for the Judiciary Committee chair? When the Republicans threatened to walk past him at the dog pound, he quickly whimpered and licked every anti-abortion hand in sight. Remember his roll-over on FISA last month? I don't have time to append the long list of similar bark-and-piddle incidents that have characterized Arlen's canine persona for the last few years.

I somehow doubt that Cheney worries much about being gummed by this pathetic embodiment of the "all bark, no bite" epithet. Feel free to start a pool in the comments, betting on the day on which Specter backs off yet again.