A small slice from the corpulent creature called the Arrogance of Power:
Sen. Arlen Specter is a busy and important man. So beyond the pale of ordinary humans, according to a report by John Shumway of KDKA-TV, that his aides skirted security regulations at Pittsburgh International Airport in order to speed the senator's departure from the erstwhile Steel City.
How⢠By getting his boarding pass with the help of authorities so Mr. Specter could breeze on his way to accomplish even more important things.
Someone tipped off Mr. Shumway, who arrived at the airport and talked to an indignant Specter -- who asserted he would personally obtain his pass per our wartime airport security protocols.
Specter did not answer the underlying issue, to wit: How dare he seek special treatment. Indeed, Specter's unbecoming attitude was more like: How dare Shumway ask me an embarrassing question.
Shumway's approach -- polite, persistent and professional -- was not entirely dissimilar from someone of our acquaintance when he asked Teresa Heinz Kerry to explain herself. Specter, however, was better behaved than Mrs. Heinz Kerry.
Specter did disclose to Shumway that he is not a security risk. That's a relief. But the millions of ordinary Americans who undergo the inconvenience of establishing their bona fides at the airport also present no danger to the traveling public.
Candidate Specter, seeking a fifth term in the Senate, might contemplate by what lights he will represent ordinary Pennsylvanians when he seemed to recoil from being one himself.
