All Roads Lead to Lieberman?
As an obsessive observer of left-of-center American political life, I’m truly angered and amazed that Joe Lieberman’s primary has become a primary focus of Democratic politics. Really people, WTF?!
Democrats are out of power in all three branches of government. The president has eviscerated the 4th Amendment and declared near dictatorial powers to disregard laws passed by his Republican-controlled Congress. Millions of our countrymen have slipped into poverty. The global warming crisis is worsening, seemingly before our eyes. And we’re bogged down in an explosive military disaster of our own creation —a war we had no business starting, and no viable plan for stopping, much less without condeming millions of Iraqis to civil war and ethnic cleansing.
And the progressive community has seized upon this opportunity to eat one of the party’s own?!?
I’m no Joe Lieberman fan. His preening religiosity and priggish self importance are enough to sour anyone on his candidacy. But Lieberman is a died dyed in the wool Democrat on every defining progressive issue, save one. Yes, on the question of the war he seems content to give the president all the rope he needs to hang himself —and America. But he’s hardly alone in this. His position is matched by nearly a dozen other Democratic Senators from Hillary to Joe Biden to Ben Nelson. And unlike, say, Hillary, his commitment to the war seems moral, rather than tactical.
The progressive blogosphere and MoveOn are now targeting Lieberman —attempting to prove their collective strength. But if anything they’re proving they’re as impotent as Rush Limbaugh. They’re acting like a child who gets bullied at school and comes home to torture the family Shar Pei.
Instead of starting early, throwing every ounce of their collective energy into taking back one or both Houses of Congress in November, netroots progressives trying to make Lieberman pay for the sins of the Bush administration. With a passion that’s almost delusional: Whatever Ned Lamont is, he’s no progressive hero. He’s a gazilionaire cable executive, a scion of Goldman Sachs, who lives in fucking Greenwich!
And even if he were to defeat Lieberman in the primary, he’s sure to lose to Lieberman running as an independent in the general election. And an independent Lieberman is going to be freed from all pressure to toe a party line on Iraq. Game. Set. Match. Another loss for the netroots.
So what I ask you, is the point?