My friend Bill Bender (former Daily Times reporter) plays catch-up on the Specter-Sestak story. And does a pretty darn good job.

I especially liked Delco Dem leader Cliff Wilson's analogy to Sestak as baseball player whose popular with the crowd but not so popular with his teammates in the dugout.

He makes Sestak sound like Barry Bonds.

Elsewhere, Specter-supporter Ed Rendell says Sestak is "being a little bit selfish" by challenging his candidate. He means "a lot selfish."

Meanwhile, the GOP congressional committee is going after Sestak with a press release claiming he is siding with Nancy Pelosi and against the Obama administration when it comes the public release of photographs allegedlly depicting prisoner-abuse by American military personnel.

From the release:

Washington- Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) marched with Speaker Nancy Pelosi's extreme beat once again today and voted with the far-left against a critical national security policy supported by President Obama (House
Roll Call 329). The amendment would give the President power to block
Freedom of Information Act releases of detainee photos for reasons of
national security. This amendment, supported by the White House and
passed with broad bi-partisan support in the Senate, was primarily
opposed by the most liberal members of the Democrat Party.

"Once again Joe Sestak has chosen to be a puppet of the most liberal
wing of the Democrat Party instead of voting to protect the lives of
American men and women in uniform," said NRCC Communications Director
Ken Spain. "By voting against blocking the release of these detainee
photographs, Joe Sestak is acting against the wishes of our military
commanders in a shallow effort to ingratiate himself to Speaker Pelosi."

In a declaration to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals General Petraeus
warned that releasing the photos would endanger the lives of US
Servicemen and Servicewomen:

"The release of images depicting U.S. servicemen mistreating detainees
in Iraq and Afghanistan, or that could be construed as depicting
mistreatment, would likely deal a particularly hard blow to USCENTCOM
and U.S. interagency counterinsurgency efforts in these three key
nations, as well as further endanger the lives of U.S. Soldiers,
Marines, Airmen, Sailors, civilians and contractors presently serving
there."

Hard to say if this will help or hurt Joe in a Democratic primary but it would surely help with the some primary voters.

It is doubtful that Joe was trying to ingratiate himself with Speaker Pelosi. But almost certainly with this vote he was trying to ingratiate himself with the hard left of his party.