It's been a rough week for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: last Friday came the news that the Democrats had won the special election in New York's 20th district, and Tuesday's defection by former Democrat-then Republican-then Democrat again Arlen Specter set off a round of finger-pointing.

In between, Steele unwisely chose to make a fight of something that never should have come to blows: A resolution offered by the current RNC treasurer and four other senior officers of the national committee to reinstitute financial controls that long had been in place at the committee, but which had been inadvertently and inexplicably allowed to lapse at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Ralph Hallow of The Washington Times -- who's made a career of tracking the inner workings of the RNC, and who has known its insiders longer and better than just about any reporter on the beat -- reported yesterday that five senior members of the National Committee have proposed a "set of checks and balances over the chairman's power to dole out money."

Steele, Hallow reported today, is fighting back hard.

According to Public Opinion Strategies partner and Arlen Specter pollster Glen Bolger, once Specter realized he couldn't win a Republican primary in Pennsylvania, there was no chance of keeping him in the GOP.

If Bolger's polls looked anything at all like this March 25 Quinnipiac survey or this April 24 Rasmussen Reports survey, it's difficult to argue with that logic.

Both polls make the case that Specter would have a far easier time getting re-elected as a Democrat than he would as a Republican -- in the Quinnipiac survey, for example, Specter's favorable/unfavorable rating among Republicans is a toxic 29/47 percent, while his favorable/unfavorable among Democrats is a far healthier 60/16 percent.

But at least one powerful element of the Democratic Party -- the Service Employees International Union -- apparently is saying, "Thanks for the party flip, Senator, glad to have you with us -- but hold on just a moment, please."

Should Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison -- who clearly wants to ditch her seat in the U.S. Senate in exchange for the governor's mansion in Austin -- follow Arlen Specter out of the Grand Old Party?

That's the argument raised by Texas Monthly senior executive editor Paul Burka, who yesterday posted this nugget at his BurkaBlog.

Burka's argument, in a nutshell: Hutchison would be welcomed by the state's Democrats as their nominee for governor against incumbent Republican Rick Perry, and -- as a more moderate Republican in a state where conservative Christians dominate her party -- she'd find beating Perry a far-sight easier in a general election than she would in a Republican primary election.

"As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the Right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy, and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party."

That's how former Republican-In-Name-Only Senator Arlen Specter justified his decision today to leave the Grand Old Party and run for reelection next year as a Democrat.

There's just one problem with his statement: It's balderdash.

So Arlen Specter's party switch today provided a Red Bull-like jolt of excitement to the body politic, or, at least, to the political junkies likely to be reading this blog.

As the author of the "single bullet theory" that caused so many to dismiss the findings of the Warren Commission's investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Specter already was on track to end up in whatever Guinness Book-like tome keeps track of weird happenings in the world of politics.

But now it's gotten even better:

With Arlen Specter's decision to withdraw from the 2010 GOP Senate primary in Pennsylvania, many on the Right are rejoicing -- assuming that this means victory for their champion, former Congressman and former Club for Growth President Pat Toomey.

Not so fast.

The moderate-to-liberal David Brooks-reading Republicans who form the core of the Pennsylvania GOP establishment aren't about to hand over their U.S. Senate nomination to the conservative Toomey.

As Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to run for re-election in the 2010 Democratic primary reverberates throughout Washington and Pennsylvania, the happiest man in town today is Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.

That's because Cornyn is Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party committee responsible for electing Republicans to the Senate.

With Specter's mid-day announcement, Cornyn gets to blot his forehead and thank his Lord for a blessing.

With five weeks left until Primary Election Day, the Republican gubernatorial race in New Jersey just kicked into high gear.

But are the rival campaigns -- and GOP primary voters -- overlooking the most salient data?

Is Jon Corzine -- who just registered the highest-ever job disapproval ratings on record for a New Jersey governor -- nevertheless on a glide path to re-election?

Later this week, government watchdog groups led by Democracy 21 are expected to issue a joint call for a probe by the House Committee on Standards on Official Conduct -- regularly referred to as the ethics committee -- into the relationship between campaign contributions by executives, allies, and clients of the now-defunct PMA Group lobbying firm on the one hand, and earmarked appropriations on the other.

The watchdog groups are following up on the investigation surrounding the PMA Group and, reportedly, three key lawmakers closely tied to it -- Reps. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., Peter J. Visclosky, D-Ind., and James P. Moran, D-Va..

In doing so, they are echoing calls by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who seven times has offered a privileged resolution calling for just an investigation, much to the consternation of House Democratic leaders.

Interestingly, under House rules that were in existence until 1997, the outside groups could have filed an actual complaint with the ethics panel itself.

That Sen. John McCain would be challenged in a primary wasn't really a surprise.

McCain is, after all, proud of his designation as a "maverick" -- and one doesn't get a reputation as a "maverick" by toeing the party line.

On any number of issues -- campaign finance regulation and immigration reform being the two most obvious -- McCain not only broke ranks with his party, he broke ranks with the conservatives who make up the grassroots and donor base of the party, and seemed to delight in poking a finger in their collective eye.

Steve Lonegan

The question is, was the wound self-inflicted, or did one of his campaign staffers or consultants do it to him, without bothering to tell him?

At issue is this attack ad, part of an allegedly independent expenditure launched by an outfit called “Freedom’s Defense Fund.”

The independent expenditure is interesting if for no other reason than it has never been done before in a New Jersey governor’s race - there have been independent expenditures before, of course, but never anything on television, and never, in the memories of several New Jersey campaign veterans I contacted, in a GOP primary.

The content of the ad is not the possible point of contention for Lonegan - as New Jersey campaigns go, it’s actually rather lame.

Rather, the problem for Lonegan is whether the ad campaign - and the communications effort behind it - is truly an independent expenditure.

Peter Visclosky (l) conferring with John Murtha (Getty)

Given Visclosky's anemic first-quarter fundraising effort -- he raised just $11,800 from individuals in amounts over $200 this year, compared to $266,250 he raised in the first quarter of 2007 -- it's a sure bet that at least some of the money he'll use to pay his lawyers will be funds he rolled over from earlier campaign fundraising efforts.

That left-over money has to include money that came from officers, employees, and clients of the now defunct lobbying shop PMA Group in previous years.

An Associated Press story on the apparent venality of some children is enough to give one pause.

Your father, a civil rights leader, is slain for his beliefs.

Decades later, private philanthropists seek to raise private money to build a monument in his honor.

Your proper response would be a humble, "That's very kind of you, gentlemen. How may we help?"

Unless, apparently, your name is King, and you happen to be the children of Martin Luther King Jr., in which case the approved response appears to be, "And just how much money are you willing to hand over to us for the right to build that monument?"

Amid the Left vs. Right kerfluffle over the Obama White House decision last week to release so-called torture memos, a voice of reason appeared over the weekend to put the matter into perspective -- former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Hayden demonstrated his characteristic unflappability -- again. His demeanor, even under the most intense probing, is so calming as to make Jack Bauer look like a Chihuahua on Red Bull laced with amphetamines by comparison.

Read the transcript of the interview. It's worth the five minutes it will take you to understand why many of those charged with maintaining the national security of the United States believe the White House just committed -- for no gain other than the optics of it -- a self-inflicted wound in an area of policy where the wounds are more typically inflicted by those intending great harm to us.

CQPolitics' own Jeff Stein has a blockbuster piece today reporting that U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, was secretly recorded by the National Security Agency promising to take an official action in exchange for help achieving a personal political ambition.

According to Stein's piece, the wiretap reveals a conversation between Harman and a suspected Israeli agent that took place in the context of the 2006 elections, in which the Democrats ousted the Republicans from control of the U.S. House.

The transcript reportedly shows Harman promising that she would try to get the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In exchange, the suspected Israeli agent allegedly promised to lobby California Democrat Nancy Pelosi -- just months from being elected Speaker of the House -- to appoint Harman to chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rick Perry (Getty)

What's troubling is not that 75 percent of those polled by Rasmussen Reports would vote to remain in the United States; what's troubling is that 18 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer that Texas secede.

It's not surprising that one in five Texas adults surveyed indicated a preference for secession -- their state's governor, as recently as two days ago, indicated he believes secession is an option for the state.

At 10:11 a.m. EDT, Oprah Winfrey joined Twitter and posted her first Tweet.

As of this writing, at 10:28 AM EDT, Oprah Winfrey's Twitter profile has been visible for 17 minutes.

With no advertising of any kind, she has already amassed more than 75,000 followers.

In 17 minutes.

By the end of the day, I'm guessing she'll be over a million.

Did the Left just take over Twitter?

Forty-eight years ago today, 1,500 Cuban exiles landed on the beach of a desolate area of Cuba's southern shore known to the locals as Bahia de Cochinos -- the Bay of Pigs.

John Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion. (Getty)

But Kennedy's insistence on reducing the U.S. military role in the invasion, in the hope of maintaining plausible deniability, doomed to failure what had been a risky proposition from the start.

Two days ago, a federal appeals court threw out a lawsuit against Rep. John P. Murtha on the grounds that because he was acting in his capacity as a Member of Congress when he said -- incorrectly -- that U.S. Marines in Iraq had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," he could not be sued for libel or defamation.

Specifically, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia cited a 1988 law that protects federal employees from being sued for things they say or do in the course of their official duties.

And that, apparently, was the end of former Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich's claim that Murtha had libeled and defamed him when Murtha made those sensational charges in May of 2006.

Every professional campaign operative who has worked more than two races in his/her life will acknowledge -- either under oath or under the influence -- that he/she has had at least one candidate who was such a dud that the campaign would have been more successful if the operative and the candidate had switched roles.

Such fantasies come to the operative in the wee hours of the morning, and usually are banished by a good two hours' sleep.

But today, in a move that will have professional campaign operatives across the nation experiencing, at least momentarily, mudita -- a Buddhist concept best understood as the opposite of Schadenfreude -- a campaign manager has done the unthinkable: She has resigned her position as campaign manager and declared her own candidacy for the office her former boss is still seeking.

Seen yesterday at Shad Planking, the annual political gathering in Wakefield, Virginia, where pols of both parties lay down their cudgels and pick up bony fish -- this picture:

No word on who was behind it, or what reaction it generated.

(H/T: Last Call!)

A golf axiom holds that, when it comes to scoring, "It's not how -- it's how many."

That is, scorecards don't have pictures. It doesn't matter how ugly were the shots you took to get the ball in the hole, all that counts is how many were the shots you took to get the ball in the hole.

Good tax policy, on the other hand, should be graded exactly the opposite -- in good tax policy, it's not just how many are affected, but how they're affected.

This morning, with a Tweet, an appearance on Allentown, PA talk radio host Bobby Gunther Walsh's show, and later with a web video, former Congressman Pat Toomey made it official: He's a candidate for the United States Senate.

To get there, he's going to have to climb over the body of a fellow Republican, five-term incumbent Arlen Specter.

Toomey's choice of April 15 as the official start of his campaign is deliberate, as any tax filing procrastinator can figure out, and he's launching the campaign with gusto -- interviews with David Freddoso at National Review Online and John McCormack at The Weekly Standard, a midday pop on FOX News Channel to talk about his campaign, and appearances on local electronic media throughout Pennsylvania.

"I am embarrassed to say I am from Illinois," read the subject line of the email that arrived in my in-box last night, from an Illinois friend who included the headline of the Chicago NBC affiliate's breaking story: "Report: Blagojevich seeking reality TV show/WMAQ in Chicago says the show is based in the Costa Rican jungle."

Former Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich -- who pleaded not guilty yesterday to 16 counts of criminal corruption -- has, according to press reports, signed with NBC to star as one of ten celebrities in a "Survivor"-style reality show to be shot in the Costa Rican jungle.

"I'm a Celebrity -- Get Me Out of Here!" is to air beginning on June 1.

Jon Cornyn (Getty)

Should he fully back GOP incumbent Arlen Specter, even though the polls show Specter likely to lose a rematch with his 2004 primary opponent, former Rep. Pat Toomey?

And if he decides to fully back Specter, just exactly how should the NRSC's support be manifested -- with a pro-Specter, positive campaign, or an anti-Toomey, negative campaign?

Hollywood action director John McTiernan has broken ground on a new front: As part of his defense against charges that he lied to a FBI agent, McTiernan has made, on his own dime, a documentary alleging that former Bush White House strategist Karl Rove launched a massive federal investigation as a means to gather negative information about a potential Democratic presidential candidate -- one Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Breaking new ground is old hat for McTiernan: He's the director who created two juggernaut franchises -- the billion-dollar-grossing "Die Hard" series, and the half-billion-dollar-grossing Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan movies.

Stupendously, stunningly, stereotypically stupid -- if true.

That's all that can be said about this European report: "Vatican Blocks Caroline Kennedy Appointment as Ambassador."

The London Telegraph, via the Italian newspaper Il Giorniale, said Vatican officials objected to Caroline Kennedy as a possible U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, because she is a supporter of abortion rights.

Congratulations. If you're the average American taxpayer, today is a red-letter day for you -- you've now paid your tax burden for 2009, and you get to keep everything you earn for the rest of the year.

That is to say, if the government had kept every penny you'd earned between Jan. 1 and today, you would now be free to start working the rest of the year for yourself, with no further tax obligation.

The Tax Foundation has been keeping tabs on Tax Freedom Day since 1971, when it took over the job from Florida businessman Dallas Hostetler, who had developed and trademarked the phrase in 1948.

To the Left -- MoveOn.org, the Obama administration, The Huffington Post, and MSNBC -- there is no difference between Karl Rove, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, the NRA, and the Club for Growth.

But don't tell that to the right. On the conservative side of the spectrum, you'll find professional Republicans looking down their noses at conservatives, and conservatives looking at professional Republicans and shaking their heads as they bemoan the professionals' willingness to cast principles overboard in the service of a political agenda.

"You can't enact your principles, if you can't get elected," say the professional GOP operatives.

There might have been a bump in TiVo and DVR sales this week, as evangelical Christians -- who regularly spend their Sunday mornings in church and who are all but guaranteed to spend Easter Sunday morning there -- will want to find a way to watch the Rev. Rick Warren's appearance on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."

But Warren canceled his appearance just "moments before the scheduled interview:"

"For those of you tuning in this morning expecting to hear from Pastor Rick Warren, we were, too," Stephanopoulos explained at the top of the broadcast. "But the pastor's representatives cancelled moments before the scheduled interview, saying that Mr. Warren is 'sick from exhaustion.' We hope he recovers quickly."

Five days ago, appearing with Larry King on CNN in his first interview since giving the invocation at Barack Obama's inaugural ceremoney, Rev. Warren apparently reversed himself on gay marriage -- and in so doing sent shock waves throughout the ranks of his supporters.

How much does John McCain wish this had happened last year, around, say, mid-August, when his campaign was moving the "Obama is too inexperienced to be President in a dangerous world" meme?

Come to think of it, how much does Hillary Rodham Clinton) wish that story had come along even earlier?

"Atlas Shrugged" may soon be coming to a big screen near you.

As the global financial system and international economy spin out of control, the 52-year-old novel by Ayn Rand has seen a resurgence of popularity -- as of this writing, three different editions command the top five spots at Amazon.com in the "Books/Literary & Fiction/Classics" category.

And now the novel -- which has been kicking around Hollywood for so long that at one point, Clint Eastwood and Faye Dunaway were considered for lead roles -- may have attracted serious interest, with backing from serious players.

All of which leads to discussion among two groups of professionals as to whom might be cast for which roles.

James Carville, what were you thinking?

The longtime Clinton consultant blasted out an email Thursday to legions of Hillary Rodham Clinton backers, offering three premium prizes as incentives for donations meant to retire her 2008 presidential campaign debt: a lunch with former President Bill Clinton, a lunch with Carville and his partner Paul Begala, and -- perhaps most valuable of all -- tickets to the season finale of American Idol.

At a mere $5 minimum donation to enter the prize sweepstakes, that's a pretty good deal.

Even I would consider tossing in five bucks for the chance to spend a meal parsing sentences and defining tenses of the verb "to be" with the former president.

"When I die, I want to be buried in (fill in the blank). That way, I can remain active in politics."

That joke -- which has been variously attributed over the years to scalawag politicians in Cook County, Illinois; Hudson County, New Jersey; and the entire state of Louisiana -- has depended for its laugh on the acknowledgement by the audience of a certain, how shall I say, "moral laxity" when it comes to the casting and counting of votes.

In places like Cook County, Hudson County, and the Bayou State, political legend has it that entire cemeteries have voted, sometimes tipping the balance even in races of national import.

The 2010 re-election campaign of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has paid to air $100,000 worth of attack ads against Pat Toomey -- a former Republican congressman and current president of the conservative Club for Growth, who six years ago challenged Specter in a GOP primary and now has indicated he's ready for a rematch.

If you know of a precedent for going on the attack that way against someone who isn't in the race yet, let me know, because I don't know of one.

The nascent Toomey camp responded fast and hard, dismissing Specter's charges as false, and getting corroboration from the neutrals at FactCheck.org that Specter's ads were inaccurate.

John Murtha

As Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., writes the largest single spending bill the Congress handles every year — more than $500 billion for Fiscal Year 2009.

A taxpayer would be forgiven for thinking that, as chairman, Murtha understands his role as being that of a firm steward of the taxpayer’s resources — the vigilant guardian of the treasury, whose job it is to place himself between those seeking the federal Pot O’ Money and the Pot itself, and hand over funds only to those projects he and a majority of the Congress and the President deem worthy of funding, after a long and careful inspection of the pros and cons of the thousands of funding requests that hit his committee annually.

That taxpayer would be forgiven … and that taxpayer would be wrong.