Lieberman and losers

Man, working's a bitch. "The Man" is doing all "he" can to keep me from my blogging responsibilities lately.

So it is with gratitude that, while I was going to write a mess o' words about this dumb NY Times article on what's driving the challenge to Joementum in CT, but no time to do it, Digby's beaten me to the punch.

This is getting stupid. The NY Times is creating a false impression about the netroots support for Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman as an expression of anti-war fervor. I think that is missing the greater point.

There are quite a few Democrats who voted for the war. They certainly have some work to do to convince many of us that they have seen the light. But the reason the netroots are taking on Joe Lieberman is because he enables Republicans on a host of issues and consistently shows disloyalty to the party in a hyper-partisan era. Alone among Democrats at the time, he went on the floor of the Senate and excoriated Bill Clinton for personal failures (that's what the speech was about) and gave support to the hypocritical Republican witch-hunters. Then, once again, alone among Democrats, he stood up for George Bush as it became obvious that the justification for the war in Iraq was based upon lies and hype. These are just two telling examples of where Lieberman tends to come out on issues that mean something to the Democratic party in a larger sense.

He comes from Connecticut. There is no excuse that he's in a Red State and has to pander to conservatives. He does this completely for its own sake. And inevitably, he gets the highest accolades from Republicans for doing so; he actually seems to revel in his position as George Bush's favorite Democrat. It is understandable that a Democratic senator lauded constantly by the right wing noise machine is going to be suspect among Democratic partisans.

There was a time when a vital center coalition existed in the Senate, where there was room on both sides for trading votes across party lines. The Republicans destroyed that coalition and Liebermann, inexplicably, doesn't seem to get that. Even worse, when the shit comes down, he inevitably sides with them. Many Democrats took a long time to learn the harsh lessons of GOP political hardball and had to lose to a bunch of thuggish right-wingers before they began to recognise what they were up against. Lieberman still refuses to accept the fact that his high minded centrism is a weapon in the hands of the radical Republicans.

I'd add a few other examples of Lieberman's obtuseness, wrong-headedness, or worse. Siding with Frist and Bush on the Schiavo affair; never raising the slightest objection to any of Bush's cabinet or court picks, most notably John Ashcroft; supporting at every turn not just the war in Iraq, but each and every tactic in Bush's "war on terror;" his high-handedness with registered CT Dems who disagree with his positions; declaring that he won't support Lamont if he loses the primary and would run as an independent.

Oh, and as for the cute little quote from Al From Digby cites,

"A very simple thing happened that changed Democratic politics dramatically, and that was that the war turned bad," Mr. From said, adding of the senator's critics: "There's a group in our party that makes a lot of noise and I don't think they've ever won an election. They're trying to take out one of the great statesmen our party has and that's wrong."

Geez, Al, you election winning track record is not something we should probably mention, don't ya think?