If Sen. Arlen Specter is trying to come across as confident and measured about his party switch, he ought to choose his words more carefully.

“I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election,” he said in a statement.

Evidently, Old Man Specter is nervous about the Democratic candidates he’ll face: The word anxious implies worry or anxiety. (It can also imply desire, but it always suggests nervousness.) Eager, on the other hand, implies desire. If someone is eager to take on the competition, she is looking forward to it, saying, “Bring it on!”

Then again, if you were 79 and on the verge of death, the prospect of mounting another campaign would be a specter.

Miss California is convinced Perez Hilton cost her the crown.

“If I had any other question, I know I would have won,” Carrie Prejean told Fox News.

Here’s the problem — well, one of the problems.

Carrie is speaking in the past perfect tense, describing an action (the pageant interview) that happened before a related event (her analysis of it). To form such a sentence, use the word had followed by the past participle.

* If I had known Perez Hilton would be a judge, I wouldn’t have participated.

* I had left the pageant before they arrived.

In this case, had is the past participle. Carrie had Perez’s question. It still has to follow the word had, which indicates the tense. So Carrie should have said, “If I had had any other question, I know I would have won.”

When you come so close to being named Miss USA, it’s understandable that a woman would have a difficult time dealing with the past.

Perez’s response in this indirect exchange also contained a grammatical error.

“I think it’s kind of very rude of her to be saying in interviews like she was yesterday that if she had been given another question she would have won and that she felt like a winner,” the blogger said.

While he mastered the past participles, he erred with his use of the word like. Like is used for nouns. He acted like a jerk. She complained like a baby. But when a verb is present — in this case, saying — you need a conjunction.

Perez should have said, “I think it’s rude of her to be saying in interviews, as she was yesterday, that if she had been given another question she would have won.”

So there you have it: The exchange between the Beauty and the Blogger is flawed on both sides.

Good grief.

The White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll appears to have filled the president with such glee he became lightheaded and experienced some grammatical confusion.

“To see so many children out here having a great time just fills Michelle and myself and the entire family with a whole lot of joy,” President Obama said.

“Myself” drips with egotism and formality. When in doubt, avoid it. It’s often misused and applies to a rare situation: when you’re both the object of an action and the subject of the same sentence. (That’s what makes it a reflexive pronoun). For example, I see myself in the mirror. I treated myself to a Lindt chocolate bunny.

In this case, the president should have said the Egg Roll “fills Michelle and me” with joy. Then we could all be joyous.

Kendra Wilkinson’s latest blog post is titled, “Me and Hank at the shooting range.” It features, unsurprisingly, a close-up of Kendra and a tiny shot of her fiance, Hank Baskett.

This is an example where grammar and etiquette align. Anytime you have multiple subjects and the speaker is among them, she should go last. (Kendra’s not the only young blonde who’s made this mistake.)

See what too much peroxide can do to the brain — and too much attention can do to the ego?

“Lindsay has always enjoyed a Red Bull, but she eats. Everybody needs to mind their own business and stop worrying about what Lindsay eats or doesn’t eat.”

That’s what Lindsay Lohan’s rep told People, denying rumors she’s on a liquid diet based on frequent Red Bulls.

I, however, believe it is my business to point out that everybody is singular, but their is plural. Lindsay’s rep should have said, “Everybody needs to mind her own business.”

While we’re on the subject, let’s review other singular pronouns that trip up overpaid celebrity reps.

* the ones - one, everyone, someone, anyone, no one

* the things - everything, something, anything, nothing

* the bodies - everybody, somebody, anybody, nobody

Whether or not is sounds right, these pronouns require singular treatment. So does Lindsay.

All the talk of hope in this morning’s interview with pastors Joel and Victoria Osteen appears to have flustered Robin Roberts.

“We just try to help people stay encouraged, not to get bitter, not to just resent things, but really stay hopeful,” Victoria told her.

“I like to tell people to get their hopes up,” Joel added.

By then Robin was seeing cross-eyed, dizzy with hope.

“And you’re hopeful that, uh, this Hope Bible for Today,” she said, “and it has, uh, and we were talking about it a little in the commercial break, um, that if you haven’t read the Bible it can help you kind of have a better understanding of certain scriptures and things like that.”

Oy.

GMA’s web editors couldn’t shake the h word either. One wrote the headline for the site’s homepage:

The Osteen’s Night of Hope

The problem? There are two Osteens — as Victoria is quick to point out. The apostrophe must be placed after the s, to indicate there are multiple Osteens.

While we’re ripping the ABC show, let’s examine its name, Good Morning America.

When you’re addressing someone — be it a friend, a board of directors or a country — your greeting (hi, good morning, goodbye) and the person or group being greeted must be separated by a comma.

Hi, Dan!

Welcome, esteemed members of the board.

Good morning, America.

I’m trying to “really stay hopeful,” to keep my “hopes up” that the producers will one day correct this glaring punctuation error.

But the truth is, I’m not quite as hopeful as the smiling Osteens.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy should know better than to compare female partners.

The Dancing With The Stars pro insists his current leading lady, Drama Queen Denise Richards, takes the competition just as seriously as his past partners.

“Denise is so dedicated to this show,” Chmerkovskiy told People. “I don’t see any difference between how hard she works compared to working with [past partners] Misty [May-Treanor] and Laila [Ali].”  

The problem? (Besides the fact that Misty and Laila worked harder and complained less.)

When you’re comparing two like things, such as two dancers, say “compared with.” Use “compared to” when likening different types of things. Denise compared dancing on prime-time TV to touching God.

Dismissing prudish advice, the first lady once again flaunted her buff arms — this time in a soup kitchen, where she dispensed some words of wisdom.

“Collect some fruits and vegetables; bring by some good healthy food,” she said. “We can provide this kind of healthy food for communities across the country, and we can do it by each of us lending a hand.”

What an unhealthy development, to hear the oft-quoted, much-admired first lady speaking this way.

Healthy refers to a person (or personified thing, such as a bank or an athletic team) in good health. When a baby is born, you ask, “Is it healthy?”

Healthful describes something that promotes good health, like fruits and vegetables.

It looks as though Mrs. Obama needs to spend less time lifting weights and more time reading Grammar Guard.

ABC issued a press release about the much-anticipated finale of The Bachelor. The headline reads:

“DeAnna Pappas Pays a Surprise Visit to Jason That Impacts His Final Decision.”

First, the prepositional phrases in this sentence are problematic. She pays a “visit to Jason that impacts his decision.” Why not “pays Jason a visit that impacts his decision.” What has the impact: Jason or the visit?

Second — and this one really bugs me — impact is not a verb, just a noun. DeAnna’s visit influences Jason’s decision. It informs it, shapes it, affects it, altars it, challenges it. And, yes, it has an impact on it. But it does not impact it.

As the acclaimed lexicographer Bryan Garner put it, “Reserve impact for noun uses and impacted for wisdom teeth.”

The ability to reassure an anxious nation depends on precise word choice. Last night, while giving his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama missed the mark.

“When we learn that a major bank has serious problems,” the president said, “we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.”

The use of the word assure, rather than the proper verb, ensure, makes this presidential pledge considerably less comforting. To assure is to make promises to or to convince, while ensure is to make certain that something will happen. Assure takes a personal object — residents, guests, tourists, consumers — the people to whom the promise is made. The president assures Americans that we will recover from this economic recession; he ensures that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is implemented with alacrity and oversight.

(While we’re on the subject, insure should be restricted to financial contexts, to describe what insurance companies do.)

In such a precarious financial setting, making certain something comes to be is much more comforting than making a promise it will.

I’d be happy to receive a few (thousand) dollars to stimulate the president’s command of English. Maybe then, with his verbs in control, he wouldn’t have to look so misty eyed.