Arlen Specter: Joe Sestak isn’t a real Democrat

Yes, really:

After taking heat from Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) for weeks, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) is fighting back. “Congressman Sestak is a flagrant hypocrite in challenging my being a real Democrat when he did not register as a Democrat until 2006 just in time to run for Congress,” Specter said in a statement today. “His lame excuse for avoiding party affiliation, because he was in the service, is undercut by his documented disinterest in the political process.”

Sestak says he was registered as an independent most of his adult life because he was in the military and felt he should be nonpartisan. Which seems like a reasonable explaination. But Specter can’t win this argument: He spent a political lifetime advancing Republican causes; Sestak, once he jumped into politics, did so on the Democratic side. Not nearly the same thing at all.