Let me get this straight. More than 2,500 American troops lay dead in a lost war for a country that never was and is now embroiled in a civil war to decide which fanatics keep which parts of which cities. A Democratic Senator leads the charge for that war, embraces a failed Republican President, defends its failure on FoxNews and elsewhere, provides political cover, wins the support of the Neo-Con press, and inspires the College Republicans to campaign for him.
But Ned Lamont's wrestling match with Joe Lieberman today in Connecticut is about an extremist wing of the party cleansing a "moderate" from its midst.
When it comes it U.S. foreign policy, Joe Lieberman is as moderate as William Kristol and Anne Coulter. He's a radical right-winger, hard-core extremist/interventionist neo-conservative - and if the likes of fraidy-cat Lanny Davis and formerly progressive publisher Martin Peretz don't like that vicious name-calling from this lefty blogger, too damned bad.
Today's vote in Connecticut is about the war.
It's not about the "wackadoo left" of the Democratic Party - not when more than two-tirds of the country believes it's time to bring the troops home. It is about clueless incumbency, about Meet the Press time instead of press the flesh time. But mainly it's about the killing fields in Iraq and the immoral, un-American policy that sent our troops there and holds them still in the gunsights of murderous thugs and religious killers.
To suggest otherwise is to pin a sign to one's own forehead with stenciled letters "Idiot Within" prominently displayed.
In today's vote, Ned Lamont's role is to carry the anger and betrayal of Connecticut voters to the polls. The rolls of the bloggers is the cheer him on. Joe Lieberman's role is to watch the end of his career.
The only role for our soldiers is to bleed.
UPDATE: William Kristol's column proves the point about Lieberman's true ideological positioning. Says the war-monger: What drives so many Democrats crazy about Lieberman is not
simply his support for the Iraq war. It's that he's unashamedly
pro-American. Glenn Greenwald nails it:
..."it isn't just Kristol. The most enthusiastic supporters of Lieberman are not "moderate" Democrats, but are instead the most extreme
Bush "conservatives." It is the Sean Hannitys and Michelle Malkins and
Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters and Fred Barnes who consider Lieberman
their ideological soulmate and who are most supportive of his
candidacy. Why is that? Isn't the obvious answer because the issues
that are most important to the country are (a) the endless, limitless
"Global War of Civilizations" and (b) the radically enhanced police
powers which that "War" justifies at home? In those areas, Joe Lieberman is as pure and reliable ally as it gets for the most extreme elements on the neoconservative Right.
UPDATE II: You know by now that Lamont topped Lieberman 52-48 in heavier-than-expected turnout and that Senator Lieberman plans to continue his independent run, despite leading Democrats urging him not to. A few voices on the results.
Fred Wilson:
Marty Peretz, a well known and lifelong Democrat, wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday claiming that Lamont was a peace candidate and likened him to George McGovern.
But I really don't think the Connecticut Democrats are going to
throw Joe Lieberman out over his unflinching support of the war. They
are going to throw him out for his unflinching support of George Bush.
The fact is the Joe Lieberman got too close to a President who is
disliked by close to 80% of the Democrat party. That's not "courage" as
Marty puts it. That's political suicide and Joe Lieberman just
committed it.
Jason Chervokas:
As the war in Iraq has fallen into ruin, together with the rest of
the nation's Middle East policy, the disconnect between Hill leadership
and the rank and file only has widened. The Democratic electorate has
come to believe that the only way to change policy is to change the
policy-makers--not only Republicans but also Democrats who seem
unwilling to fight for the core concerns of party regulars. That's why
so many Dems were upset when Sen. Chuck Schumer, who heads the party's
senatorial campaign committee, ran a fresh faced, anti-war veteran like
Paul Hackett out of the Senate race in Ohio in favor of Sherrod Brown,
a party ladder-climber who served as Ohio Secretary of State before
winning election to Congress. This morning, in the wake of the Lamont
victory, does anyone believe that Brown has a better shot of unseating
Mike DeWine than Hackett would have had?
What rank and file Dems have lacked until now are "viable"
candidates to run against incumbents in party primaries. "Viable" in
this context means the ability to fund one's own campaign, because
that's what it takes to break through against someone entrenched in the
party power structure.
In Lamont, northeastern Dems saw a perfect storm of
anti-incumbent politics. Small state. Big money. And interestingly, the
alternate organizing medium of the Internet, which allowed Lamont's
forces to run a get-out-the-vote campaign that could compete with the
traditional ones run by organized labor and party leaders.
Joe Gandelman:
But am I with you, Senator Lieberman? Will I join you? No. Not yet. And
perhaps not at all in this campaign. Although I have admired you in the
past, and although I am a big-tent Democrat who still thinks you have
much to offer the Democratic Party, I'm uncomfortable with an
independent candidacy against the winner of the Democratic primary and,
regardless, like so many others in the party, I've been opposed to the
positions you've taken in recent years on certain key issues like Iraq.
You speak eloquently for independent as opposed to partisan politics,
but I'm just not sure you get it anymore. When the other side, Bush's
side, is doing so much harm both to America and to the world beyond,
it's imperative to take sides, to take the right side, to stand in
opposition to the other side. It's possible to do that while avoiding
extremism and while retaining diversity and difference on our side. Not
all of us will agree on what to do, after all, but at least we can
agree that something needs to be done to change the direction the
country is taking -- a direction determined by Bush and the
Republicans. Do you not see that they are brutally partisan themselves?
Do you not see that they have used you at the expense of your own
party? Do you not see that they are very much the problem?
Strangely enough, on this day of blog triumphalism - literally, the greatest palpable real-world "accomplishment" of the blogosphere thus far - fair bigger than a doctored Reuters photo or Dan Rather's career - the dean of blog rooters Jeff Jarvis is silent on the bloggers' big win in Connecticut. Heck even this guy says it's a big blogging deal.
Lance Mannion:
Delivering that speech on the Senate floor was symbolic. Lieberman
was claiming a position beyond that of outraged citizen. He was making
a quasi-official attempt to shame Bill Clinton into resigning.
No doubt he didn't see it that way. But that was its effect. He
gave bipartisan cover to the Republicans' charade that what they were
up to wasn't about the lowest of partisan politics. They were trying
to undo an election and Joe Lieberman stood up in the Senate and said
that their motives were pure and just.
And that's been Lieberman's trademark ever since.
Tags: Joe+Lieberman Ned+Lamont Lieberman Lamont Lanny+Davis Peretz Senate Connecticut
Here's why Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in the primary is so huge nationally for the Democrats: summertime attention.
Well, you see Maureen, about that tone. You wouldn't use it on a man. You used it because Mrs. Clinton is a woman, the first in U.S. history with a real shot at the Presidency. Now, the points she raises are mostly valid - to see how it's done without snarling "bitch" in the gutter, read Bob Herbert's column the next day. He nails Mrs. Clinton for her war positions, and hits damned hard. But there's no gender implications in his prose. Herbert treats Mrs. Clinton as if she's the real deal, someone worthy of detailed public attack. In other words, as a man.
Gibson's kid glove treatment by the sheriff's department remains controversial; he was charged only with misdemeanor driving under the influence. But the written report of the deputy who pulled him over (who is Jewish) tells of "Gibson trying to escape arrest and then allegedly threatening to 'get even' with him," according to the 
And it's what is happening all over this country with increasing rapidity - the cold realization of not only failure in Iraq, but weakness of it all, the gullibility of us all, our failure to see, our willingness to trust and believe and follow. Like E.G. Marshall's stockbroker, a legion of upstanding citizens is realizing tehri gross, mass mistake - its happening in Connecticut, where the war far more than the game, blogging volunteers, are spelling Democratic doom for Joe Lieberman. And I think it's going to happen elsewhere, as the jurors begin to switch their votes one by one. After an 11-to-one vote in the sweltering jury room on Centre Street, Henry Fonda explains his refusal to convict: