Do you want to know why the Republican Party disgusts me?

Just take a look at the Pennsylvania Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by Arlen Specter.

Specter is a disgusting old political hack who doesn't deserve to be dogcatcher of Bucks County. Yet, he has served four terms in the Senate.

He claims to be a Republican, but he supports few positions in the Republican platform. He is pro-abortion. He is pro-homosexual. He is a big spender. He is a big-government liberal by any standard you want to use.

Finally, this year, someone within the party decided to challenge Specter – a young congressman named Pat Toomey.

Toomey, 42, didn't have much of an organization. He didn't have a lot of money. But he did have grass-roots support from conservatives – people who actually believe in Republican Party principles, not just politicians who call themselves Republicans.

But the party establishment rushed to Specter's defense. Not only did President Bush weigh in to support the 74-year-old Specter, who is on the wrong side of nearly every issue under the sun, but so did the usually reliable junior senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum.

Despite the money advantages, the endorsements and the party establishment firmly behind him, Specter managed to squeak out a victory of less than 20,000 votes in a contest where more than 1 million were cast.

The Republican leadership's way of thinking about this race focuses on Specter being in line for the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee next year. But that should be reason for opposing him, not supporting him.

In 1987, Specter opposed President Reagan's appointment of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. He betrayed his own Republican president and a very good jurist. Why the Republican establishment would remain loyal to this unprincipled liberal is beyond me.

My colleague Ann Coulter rightly blames Specter for the following:

• States can't prohibit partial-birth abortion;

• Voluntary prayer is banned at high-school football games;

• Flag-burning is a constitutional right;

• The government is allowed to engage in race discrimination in college admissions;

• The nation has been forced into a public debate about gay marriage;

• We have to worry about whether the Supreme Court will allow "under God" to be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

"More than any other person in America, Arlen Specter is responsible for a runaway Supreme Court that has turned every political issue into a 'constitutional' matter, giving radical liberals an uninterrupted string of victories in the culture wars," she writes. "That's not a court, it's a junta."

Yet this is the man the Republicans want to see as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the panel that reviews all federal judicial appointments including those to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And they may get him – if he can survive a general election with a no-name congressman bidding for higher office this year.

But what difference does it make if Specter wins or a Democrat? What good is control of the Senate if your party stands for nothing? Who in their right mind would want to elevate Arlen Specter to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

If the Republican Party really stood for principle, its members would refuse to seat someone like Specter. He doesn't uphold the Constitution as he swears under oath to do. He aids in its deconstruction. He gives cover to the immoral Democrats in their unseemly attacks on people like Bork and Clarence Thomas and any other judicial nominee not in lockstep with the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Republicans are so determined to hang on to control of the Senate in November's election that they've lost control of their own party's soul.