"I'm a changed person ... isn't this a face you can trust?"

Remember the old Peanuts comic strip football gag? Once a year Lucy Van Pelt would hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick and every time she'd yank it away at the last minute leaving poor old Charlie Brown flat on his back.

Well, here's a clue:

Sen. Arlen Specter = Lucy Van Pelt

The Football = Specter's criticisms of the Bush Administration and his promises of real investigations/actual consequences

Charlie Brown = Anyone who takes Specter seriously

This time around, the football is Specter's claims that he's preparing a bill to sue Bush over his use misuse of signing statements.

From the AP:

WASHINGTON - A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush’s signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.

“We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president’s acts declared unconstitutional,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Every time Ol' Arlen gets all outraged at abuses by this administration, he eventually backs down, no, make that rolls over for them. (Is it Rove or someone else who's in charge of rubbing his tummy when goes back to being the good doggy?)

Let's look at the record:

Specter is alarmed at Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance, so he creates legislation to effectively repeal FISA's current requirements captulating to executive claims of power.

Specter backed away from his pledge to question executives from telecommunications companies that have allegedly been cooperating with the government's secret wiretapping program.

Specter urges Bush to come forward about Iraq data leak in April, but, as of yet, has done nothing about it.

Specter said he was considering legislation to cut off funding for the Bush administration's secret domestic wiretapping program until he gets satisfactory answers about it from the White House, but of course did nothing of the sort.

Specter declared Gonzales' explanations to date as "strained and unrealistic" and said the he believed that Bush violated the FISA law but did not have Gonzales sworn in at the hearings.

Specter backed down when the administration rejected his request to have former attorney general John Ashcroft and his former deputy, James Comey, testify about the origins of the secret wiretapping program.

And, that's just in the last six months.

Arlen doesn't just carry the water for Bush and his buddies, he rolls around in their golden showers.

If you still believe that Specter will really go after Bush on his unprecedented (in quantity and scope) use of signing statements, all I've got to say is:

I got your nose!

Yep, it's right, here! See? (That'll teach you to lean in so close to your monitor.)

If Arlen actually makes something of this suit, I'll give it back.