Dear Diary,

"IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way..."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter by Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)