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Evan M. Lopez

So, what lesson have we learned this week? You do not fuck with Arlen Specter, because Arlen Specter does not fuck around. Even at 80, Snarlin' Arlen is perfectly willing to swat a fly with a bulldozer, and if he has to lift a page from Karl Rove's playbook to get what he wants — that would be re-election — so be it. What else did we learn? His primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak — a former Navy three-star admiral who acts, in the strange words of strange MSNBC forehead Chris Matthews, a bit too much like a "St. Francis" for Pennsylvania voters (cough pussy cough) — could use a little primer in the art of punching back.

What fun. Let's review, shall we?

A month ahead of their May 18 primary, Democratic Senate candidates Specter and Sestak went on the air with their respective ads: Sestak, a decidedly meh introduction to a voting base that has no idea who he is; Specter, a knee-capper slamming Sestak's Navy career and congressional attendance record, replete with that creepy voiceover that exists only to tell you that Joe Sestak is a very bad man. Team Sestak took umbrage at Specter's attack on the congressman's Navy record (not so much the part about his congressional attendance, because who cares) and pointed out that Specter went negative just as an April 12 Rasmussen poll showed the primary race was a dead heat.

Specter's ad — which has been condemned by none other than Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey — aimed to stake the heart of Sestak's biography by claiming that the 31-year vet was "relieved of duty" for creating a "poor command climate."

Here are the facts: In July 2005, Adm. Mike Mullen (now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) was sworn in as the chief of naval operations and immediately sacked Sestak as deputy chief of naval operations for warfare requirements and programs and reassigned him to "lower-profile desk jobs," as a 2005 Navy Times story put it. In January 2006, after his 6-year-old daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer, Sestak left the service; he ran for Congress the following November.

Specter's ad relies on that Navy Times piece, which alleges that Mullen removed Sestak — a Naval Academy grad with a master's in public administration and a doctorate in political economics, both from Harvard, who was the first director of the Navy's in-house think tank, called "Deep Blue" — not because he was intellectually unfit, but because he was an asshole.

Per the story: "Pentagon sources said Sestak was known to keep appointments waiting outside his office at length and pile excessive amounts of work on his subordinates, keeping them deskbound at all hours. One described a verbally abusive leadership style."

It's here that the words "poor command climate" first appear, unattributed.

Responds Team Sestak: Sestak's job as deputy chief was to "review the plans of those who outranked him and come up with alternatives. When Mullen came on, he brought on his own team. The congressman moved to another position. No one has ever said anything to besmirch his record on the record," says a campaign source, off the record. In an interview, Sestak says his role was to "change the Navy to a smaller, more effective Navy by moving money into intelligence. There were those in the Rumsfeld [Department of Defense] that didn't like it."

Sestak struck back — if you want to call it that — with a letter signed by Navy comrades who called him a "sailor of the highest caliber, a leader of tremendous character and an officer of uncommon compassion." His former superior officer, Adm. Vern Clark, told The Philadelphia Inquirer on April 11, "He challenged people who did not want to be challenged. The guy is courageous, a patriot's patriot." Then, on April 22, Sestak released a public letter asking Vice President Joe Biden, who visited Scranton the next day to raise money for Specter, to disavow Specter's ad.

Yawn. At the risk of playing favorites — this column is rigid in its fairness and balance — more bare-knuckle tactics are required here, congressman: If Specter is slinging mud while you're just getting your name out there, crying "Swift Boat" ain't gonna cut it. You gotta fight fire with fire. Example: "If Arlen Specter had his way, Sarah Palin would be vice president."

See what your creepy voiceover guy can do with that.

The question is whether Sestak will, in the race's home stretch, mount the requisite all-out assault on Specter's 30 years as a Republican senator who backed the Iraq war, cleared Clarence Thomas' ascension to the Supreme Court and still to this day supports Steve Forbes' wet dream of a flat tax?

It seems Sestak is finally getting the point. (Better late than never.) In our 15-minute interview, Sestak used the word "confused" to describe Specter a good dozen times, as in: "You're confused, very confused, this is not the Republican Party you gave a half-century to."

Translation: "Arlen Specter is old and senile and belongs in a home." Now that's hardball. Pass the popcorn.

GOOD WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

There's a sucker born every minute, and Michael Badnarik knows it. On Sunday, he was able to persuade 17 such suckers to pay $100 to hear him give a high school civics lesson about the Constitution — titled "Introduction to the Constitution" — peppered with morsels of Glenn Beck (chalkboard included!), in a dreary Drexel University classroom. For nine hours, Badnarik, leveraging his credentials as the 2004 Libertarian Party presidential candidate and his self-conferred degree of constitutional scholarship, waxed on about the Constitution, how great it is, what it is, and how Barack Obama is planning on introducing an amendment to use it as personal toilet paper.

Lunch was served. It cost $100.

By the time we rolled out of bed and made way to University City — 2 p.m., don't judge us — the class was five hours in, but Badnarik was just arriving at the basics: what an article is, what a section is, how many articles, how many sections, etc. (In the 10 minutes it took him to explain this, Badnarik made about $32 discussing things that are available on Wikipedia for free. Just saying.)

For a minute, we felt duped: We were promised right-wing populism, manifestos on states' rights and at the very least, one comparison of Obama to Hitler. But the lecture lost its prosaicness as Badnarik — in front of a chalkboard half-filled with constitutional chronology and half-filled with geometry questions from an earlier Drexel class — launched into injunctions of Philly as the cradle of liberty and Tea Partydom.

"You've got to feel the power!" he implored. "You're here in Philadelphia! I mean, can't you feel Benjamin Franklin looking over your shoulder, saying go for it!"

Um, yeah. Other points of interest: "General welfare" does not apply to food stamps or leeches who use resources while, Badnarik says, "I'm working my butt off, and someone's watching TV, eating Bon Bons and making babies. Not on my watch!" Also: The state legislature is designed to prevent things like Obamacare from encroaching on our rights to not see a doctor.

Also: life, liberty and property! $100.

This week's report by Jeffrey C. Billman and Andrew Thompson. E-mail us at amillionstories@citypaper.net.