Stop Me Before I Vote Again

But the question remains whether there is any home in the Democratic Party for a true progressive. Lamont’s victory in the primary certainly doesn’t answer that question. On most issues he’s almost indistinguishable from Lieberman. On Tuesday you had only to travel down I-95 to Georgia to see what happens to real progressives, where the Democratic Party conspired with Fox News and the rest of the press to try to destroy Cynthia McKinney’s political career. For the second time.

Thanks as always, Alex. It's a hideous political atrocity that the questions I pose below already have an answer -- a disgraceful "fish in a barrel" -type answer:

• Will Cynthia run a Team Georgia independent democrat campaign?
• Will the state and the party even let her try?

REPUGS WILL ROLL FOR JOEMENTUM

But here's the total plot changer, the mysterious shadow geek Schlesinger, Republican nominee, ex-mayor of Derby, and quondam two-party pocket protector: a "roll over" stunt dummy.

Yup, that's who this time is playing the part the original Lowell W used to steal the whole production.

There may be a new subplot this time -- a patch on the near shipwreck of St Hill, future president, as her in-state peace and minority base deserts her, after Al and Jesse and the progs mount a paper chase attack on her, for her obviously phony, belated, limp-wristed moves against the party-wrecking renegade nutmeg muppet.

Of course there could be a baseline shift -- a foursquare funding boycott that forces Joe to quit the race -- but is that likely? I doubt it. They have so far not even grumbled, so all that can stop Joe otherwise is just that corn-footed nincompoop, Mr S, ex-mayor and pseudonymous casino rat, and he couldn't find a way to seriously split the caveman/babbit vote with Lieb in a zillion Groundhog Day reruns. So we look to see now who, if anybody, breaks their money promises to Joe, and who keeps 'em

Note well Senator Schoom's pressure on the Dem donor base. Will he and his junior colleague, Lady McHill, both be screaming, we must rub the Joe spots off our hands?

Much ammo for the Stop Me movement will be produced whichever way it goes.

As a final tear-faced clown bathetic touch -- notice the present plight of one Senator Chris Dodd, son of the aforementioned Pickled Tom. Yikes! The poor man's managed to cover himself in Joementum stink spray so bad over the last few months.... Well, let put it this way: right this moment, as he plans to gather with other Conn Dem loyalists, he smells so foul, so flexible of mind, so craven, so morally hunchbacked, that even if he were to literally stab dearest Joe in the neck right on the floor of the US Senate -- even so, unlike, say, St Hill, he's doomed. He's forever fated to cry "out out damned spot!"

But show no mercy to the fool. His blown-haired high-handed fucklebucking around, his career-long pandering and mincing condolence, have finally caught up with him. And to think he's ruined because he played wing man to the Joe Show.

Well, it had to happen sometime, somehow. And I say he oughta land himself where his two-facing on Central America earned him a visit -- at the bottom of a thousand-gallon vat of skin stripper.

Coda: The universal Dem line is obvious -- "For chrissake, Joe, try feeling some self-shame here for once, and fucking step aside... for country, state, and party!"

Demopublican hermaphrodite and corporate Gila monster Mike Bloomberg has endorsed old Talks With God, as has Democratic Party part-owner Steven Rattner (also a former Judith Miller toyboy, Times scribbler, and intimate friend of Pinch Sulzberger and Bill Clnton).

According to the Times, even the AFL-CIO may have gotten its draft notice to report for duty at Camp Lieberman. A bit like having a three-toed sloth on your hockey team, admittedly, but perhaps there's a certain symbolic value.

Or will they pull a '72, when Czar Meany declared "it's still a good war," and kicked Mcgovern in the nuts like a he was a child molester? Will they dove it up with Ned, or will they stick by Joe, or will they sit it out and just keep on rottin' away, stinking up the blue collar precincts of donkery till there ain't enough left of em to smell anymore?

Hey, that isn't so far off, matter of fact.

This anti-party clique forming around Lieberstiltskin -- this Mini-Me uber alles power play, this dirtball hawk krieg -- must be crushed all the way down.

Fellow progressive Democrats! This is a scratch match. Either Joe must be obliterated or this party splits. It ain't big enough for both Joe Lieberman and any possibility of social progress, lasting peace and basic human decency.

This may be the final conflict for the soul of the party. There can be no "come home Joe" -- and in this light the Mini-Me donors need to be isolated, and the squalid labor hacks, and any light footed mum Dem pols too, keeping their options open. They need to be singled out, publically spotlighted, and subjected to a brutal series of head-spinning party exorcisms -- and I mean the type of obsessive ritualizing you saw on Kong Island, repeated like prayers to Allah, over and over, till the target bursts into bloody atoms from mere chagrin.

Wait, wait - which do we want, the party to split or the progs to win?

Lieberman's long-time puppet masters don't seem to be willing to give him up without a fight. (I don't feel I know exactly who all those puppet-masters are, but the Israel lobby is certainly among them, which is just about enough for me.) Not that they care about him, as such, but I don't think they want the Helots of the Democratic Party getting the idea that they can defy the Spartiates' will. I'm starting to get the impression that in some influential quarters, at least, Connecticut is coming to be seen as a no-pasaran. These nobodies think they can deflect the Democratic Party from the course we have chosen for it? Think again, O foolish and presumptuous rabble.

Now if the four-star Orcs of the Democratic Party Mordor have decided that Connecticut needs to be a decisive battle, something in me says that it would be nice if they lost it.

On the other hand, I have sworn a great and terrible oath, solemnized in a cypress grove at midnight in the dark of the moon and sealed with the blood of an albino jackass, never to vote for another Democrat. So I can hardly urge anybody else to do so either.

In one way, I would like to see the firm of Schumer, Rattner, From, Pelosi, Clinton and Reid, LLC, reassert control of the party and put an end to any delusions that it can be wrested from its masters. But there is a disagreeable whiff of the-worse-the-better about this.

Then, too, I get very excited imagining the chagrin of Vile Joe if he fought the election with all kinds of Wall Street and Lobby muscle behind him, and still lost. Never deny yourself a pleasure needlessly.

Help me out here, folks. What's a poor lefty to do?

Of course -- no one would disagree that we should only have many more such quandaries, right?

... I think this Left I On The News fellow has Lamont's number:

Ned Lamont: Perception and reality

If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England....

I’m worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don’t appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us — more evil, or as evil, as Nazism....

Joe's alternate universe is at least richly-colored and exciting. But what are we to make of the strange shadowy hyperspace, or rather infraspace, in which David Sirota apparently lives and moves and has his being?

For Dems, Lamont Helps, and Lieberman Becomes a Clear & Present Danger

For months, Washington pundits, operatives and lobbyists have been issuing apocalyptic prophecies claiming that if Ned Lamont won the Connecticut Democratic primary, the Democratic Party will be severely weakened. But in very specific ways, it is clear this morning that the exact opposite is happening: that Lamont's win has strengthened the Democratic Party, and Joe Lieberman's selfish decision to ignore the democratic primary process and run as a candidate of one will weaken the Democratic Party. Here's what I mean.

Lamont's win will strengthen Democratic unity: In 2002, Republicans ran Rep. Pat Toomey against Sen. Arlen Specter. Though Toomey lost, GOP strategists knew the race was no waste - it reinforced to other GOP officeholders that if they veer from the conservative line, they could face a primary challenge. That has helped the GOP build and maintain unity, and that's the very same thing that will happen now that Lamont has won the Connecticut primary. As Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) admitted, Democrats everywhere now have a very clear example of how aiding and abetting the right-wing agenda of George W. Bush could land them with a challenge from their own voters at home.

And lordy, lordy, it's truly mind-bending to see Rahm Emanuel cited as a defender of some imaginary Democratic orthodoxy from which Joe is supposed to have departed. Rahm and Joe, ideological antagonists? Maybe in a world where pi = -3.

It's true, of course, that there is something different about Joe. The difference is that he's actually a more honest person than, say, Hillary Clinton. Hillary doesn't mean a word she says. Joe really does mean it. Of course that implies he's mad as a snake, but still, you have to give him credit for sincerity.

Joe plays the neocon symphony fortissimo from beginning to end, and lays out the line in all its full loopiness, because he really buys it. Naturally that's a little embarrassing for people like Hillary and Rahm, who follow the score, in practice, as sedulously as Joe does, but soft-pedal its crazier fugal passages.

Lamon't victory a victory for party unity? How can you say these things, David? The party lined right up behind Joe. And it's not at all clear, to me at least, that they aren't still behind him, in deed if not in word.

My God, the mad muppet, der Lieberhund, the would-be hammer of the new Caliphate, is characterized as a man of civility and plain-spoken moderation -- a modest, self-effacing tea and crumpet server at the center for wholesome dialogue. Pass me that full bottle of George Dickel you got back there, barkeep -- I gotta mood shift emergency here.

To complete the circuit of hyperbole, there's also our guy Ned, ripping himself loose from his straitjacket. Suddenly he's leapin' Lamont, the barn burner.

Give me a break -- that paddleball preppy? Nattering Ned, fixin' to torch the house of bipartisan, er, intercourse? Hell, he couldn't burn a hole in his own pants pocket.

Lieberman Viciously Attacks Bernie Sanders; GOP Rewards Him With Cash

Connecticut's Manchester Journal Inquirer reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman (De Facto R) today unleashed a vicious attack on Vermont Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders - a longtime progressive hero and the leading candidate to keep Vermont's U.S. Senate seat out of GOP hands. According to the newspaper, the Lieberman campaign sent out an official email attacking, among others, Sanders and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of DailyKos.

Q: What moral quality is commonly associated with an attack?
A: The quality of viciousness.
Q: Is a vicious attack ever released? Liberated? Let slip? Launched upon the long-suffering world?
A: It is not. Invariably it is unleashed.
Q: Very good. Here is a letter of introduction to Katrina van den Heuvel.

How could [Lamont] expect to convince "moderate Democrats, Republicans, and most importantly, unaffiliated voters" that he "would be anything other than a rigid partisan rubber stamp in the Senate," the Lieberman spokesman asked, "when the only proof of his independence he can show is that he is slightly to the right of socialist Bernie Sanders on fiscal policy?"

[Voice offstage] Cut it out, Smith. Just cut it out.

Okay, okay. Here's the best abuse Sirota can come up with for Lieberman:

From now on, I am going to be referring to Joe Lieberman as De Facto GOP Nominee Joe Lieberman and I urge everyone else covering this race to do so in the interest not of partisanship, but out of respect for objective accuracy.

Among other crypto-Republicans who fall into the abyss of Sirota's excommunication from the Democratic Party is Marty Peretz. Now there's a real question of "objective accuracy" here. You can say a lot of bad things about Lieberman and Peretz, and I will keep buying you Myles commemorative pints as long as you want to say them, but one thing you can't truthfully say is that they're not Democrats. They have a much better claim to that title than Sirota has -- after all, they've helped start real wars and kill real people.

Senator Lieberman: Why Would You Let A Republican 527 Attack Group Work For You? (5 comments )

When Independent Senator Joe Lieberman "conceded" his loss in the primary, he fell back on an old inside-the-beltway favorite - blame partisan politics.

"I am disappointed not just because I lost, but because the old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.

I expect that my opponent will continue to do in the general election what he has done in the primary ... partisan polarizing instead of talking about how we can solve people's problems, insults instead of ideas. In other words, more of the same old partisan politics that has assailed Washington today. "

Well, now Joe Lieberman has a chance to put his money where his mouth is. Not only are Republicans working for him and giving him money, the worst form of slime in American politics today, the right wing 527 attack group, has slithered its way into Connecticut politics.

"Veterans For Freedom" a right wing 527 creation that falsely advertised itself as "non partisan" till a forced IRS filing on July 31, 2006 showed their true colors ran an ad this week praising Senator Lieberman....

What's with these guys? I still don't get it. This indignant posturing, this shadow-play of beating up on Lieberman -- what's the point? Are these poor liberal-schmiberals really shocked, shocked! that Lieberman isn't playing by the rules that they have internalized? Do they really believe their own propaganda about the Democratic Party as an institution -- particularly the bit about it being small-d democratic?

The geschrei-ers and gevalt-ers -- Sirota, Gitlin, Boyce, all of 'em -- ought to be concentrating their fire on the Party establishment, which is clearly hedging its Lieberman bets, and in many individual cases putting all the chips forthrightly on the LIberman square. But of course they can't do that -- it would be too much like attacking the institution itself.

I guess that's the real problem with the schola scoldorum -- they can't take in that Lieberman's non-defeat defeat says something quite damning about the strategy they embrace. That strategy begins with getting "progressives" nominated -- and look what happens when the first step succeeds. Presto, the rules of the game change!

Admitting you've been conned is quite difficult, of course, but it's a precondition of any kind of constructive response. Alas, it appears too difficult for Gitlin, and Sirota, and Boyce; they would rather waste their cyber-ink venting impotent and misdirected rage on an utterly indifferent target, and preaching political morality to a mad dog.

Now he must be put down coldly, professionally, and faster then a Jack Kennedy love tryst -- put down and carried off to the dissection table in a plastic seep-proof bag, like the rabid pussycat he is.

The time has come for the magnificent seven to ride into nutmeg land, and take that toon of a loon out -- yes, nothing less than the full heavy cream of the senatorial Democracy: Clinton Kerry Boxer Lautenburg Kennedy Biden and Obama.

And you better bring the hook and the butterfly net, gang -- this won't be easy. "Come on down from that tree, Joe -- come on -- folks is in a hurry now -- truck's a-waitin'."

But whatever it takes, I'd say shoot to kill (metaphorically, of course) -- but then, I'm mean. What ever you do, though, no matter how humane you must be, get him into secure custody now -- extraordinary political rendition.

PS -- This ain't happening yet -- and let me tell you, if it still doesn't, and Lamont the Negligible loses, the party of Marse Jeff is indeed doomed. Which will come as no surprise to 97% of this site's readership, I suspect.

Former President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton have offered to campaign for Mr. Lamont [and] his aides say the offer will be accepted....

Then there's the awkward matter of... the, pardon the expression, issues. Lamont beat Joe by being anti-war. But the most prominent AIPAC-drone War Democrat in the Senate is going to be campaigning for him? How's that going to play? "I disagree with Ned and agree with Joe on the most important issue of the day, but I still think you should vote for Ned."

Fudging the stark choices is, of course, a Clinton specialty, but this one will call for some real virtuosity. If anybody can do it, though, the Clintons can. They're the Paganinis of Fudge.

Clinton, Lamont Meet in New York

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont over for coffee Friday, discussing campaign strategy and offering to host a fundraiser, [Howard Wolfson], a spokesman for the senator said....

Clinton has contributed $5,000 from her political action committee to Lamont's campaign and will do "whatever works for the campaign," Wolfson said. Wolfson, one of Clinton's senior political strategists, also said he will join the Lamont campaign as an adviser.

J Alva comments, ironically, I suspect:

Hillary gives money, lends dude to Lamont, hosts fundraiser, etc. . . I guess those progressives taught them all a real lesson.

Recent polls show Lieberman with a narrowing lead over Lamont in the general election, with Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger in single digits.

If Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Democratic colleagues are anxious to get rid of him, they gave no indication of it in their first gathering since Lieberman lost a Connecticut primary....

“I don’t think there’s any of us out there saying ‘Goddamn, I hope Joe doesn’t win,’” said Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.)....

Democratic senators applauded Lieberman at their weekly policy luncheon, when Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asked him to brief the caucus on upcoming port-security legislation.

“Welcome back,” said Reid.... After Reid’s introduction, Lieberman got “a warm ovation,” according to Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)....

“I’d always like to work with Joe Lieberman,” [said] Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)....

“I’m not going to settle for a handshake. I want a big hug,” Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told Lieberman....

Joe lost a Democratic primary. He is now running as a third-party candidate.

Now we all know that if there's anything a Democrat hates, it's a third-party candidate. Here, for example, is a characteristic Kosnik jeremiad against Ralph Nader, who is, it seems, responsible for everything bad in the United States today:

Thanks, Ralph Nader, egomaniac and asshole!
by Virt
Mon May 15, 2006 at 09:21:32 PM PDT

Take a look, Ralph. Take a look at the damage you have wrought. No difference between the two major parties, huh? Well, thanks a lot, Ralph.

NSA, FBI, wiretaps, no Bill of Rights, no Constitution, endless war, "free speech zones," environmental degradation on a scale never seen, an end to democracy and the rise of America as a Fascist nation.

Great job, Ralph! You made the election close enough to steal by lying to your supporters and the country. You are part of the Bush team and your legacy will be the destruction of civil liberties and the defilement of the environment. When your name is uttered years from now it will be as a curse spat out with contempt.

But of course the Kosniks don't count for much. What counts is the leadership of the party to which the Kosniks have sold their souls. And that leadership is clearly not only ready to welcome Joe back with open arms -- they're obviously a lot happier with him than they are with poor -- okay, not poor, rich -- Ned Lamont.

I don't see Ralph Nader getting a lot of forgiving hugs, or even a kind word, from the big snouts at the Democratic trough. But Joe -- Joe's a different story. Joe is one of us. When he comes back to the Senate, they will kill the fatted calf. He was lost, and is found! He was dead, and is alive again!

Well, the Kosniks are, no doubt, very unhappy about this discrepancy. But by Election Day they will have gotten over it. They will get up, shower (and shave or not, as the case may be), knock back a Starbucks coffee, and grimly troop off to the polls as in duty bound.

And oh, how the Froms, and the Clintons mere and pere, and the Rubins, and the Liebermans, will laugh, and laugh, and laugh!

50 former Congressmen, Senators, Clinton vets launch 'Dems for Joe' Lieberman

The squeals of outrage coming from the pwog blogs about this are nearly deafening. "How dare dem party big-whigs not back our pwoggie fave-rave!" they squeak. Not that they'll actually do anything about it, mind you.

... founding members include former Sens. David Boren (Okla.), Bob Kerrey (Neb.), John Breaux (La.) and Dennis DeConcini (Ariz.); former Reps. Mel Levine (Calif.) and Leon Panetta (Calif.), who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton; former Clinton Agriculture Secretary and former Rep. Mike Espy (Miss.); and former Clinton CIA Director James Woolsey.

They join a much smaller group of incumbent Democratic Senators who have endorsed Lieberman in the general election. Sens. Tom Carper (Del.), Ken Salazar (Colo), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) all have decided to stick by Lieberman.

Lieberman says he has been promised seniority

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut running for re-election as an independent, says the party leadership has assured him he would keep his seniority if he returns to Congress.... Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) denies making a decision.

Lieberman said his desire is to stay atop Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.... The governmental affairs panel is primarily responsible for oversight and investigations of the executive branch....

Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group that supports Lamont, said ... “This is a Lieberman campaign tactic... Democratic leaders are supporting Ned Lamont.”

Well, no, Tom. They're pretty obviously not.

Matzzie (shown at left in an earlier avatar, before he shaved and started wearing suits) reminds me of poor Jacob in the Bible, who labored seven years for Rachel and awoke after his wedding night to find that the bride's father had pulled a switcheroo and subsituted Rachel's older sister, Leah -- probably the homely sister, although the Bible tactfully doesn't say. Jacob promptly volunteered to labor another seven years for Rachel, and I'm sure that's what Matzzie will do, too.

Gotta admire the guy's perseverance. But I don't envy him his wedding night with the tiny toad of Bridgeport.

Jerome Armstrong [has] got it all wrong when it comes to the Lamont-Lieberman race....[H]e says he"view[s] this race as one of a weak Democrat that has appeal for Republicans against a strong partisan progressive Democrat."

... [I]t's easy for us all to sit back and comfort ourselves and say, yeah, if Lieberman is reelected, he will just be a bad Democrat, but he won't switch, and he'll be a Democrat, so who cares? People say this even as the mounting evidence suggest the contrary - and very strongly. This is a guy who is now running to national newspapers making overt threats about switching parties.

Sirota's keening here is in response to a comment by Jerome Armstrong:

I view this race as one of a weak Democrat that has appeal for Republicans against a strong partisan progressive Democrat. It's similar to a lot of mayoral races that happen nowadays, where, because of the weakness of the Republican party, the to-the-right Democrat/Independent wins their vote. Such is the electoral landscape in situations where the Republican party is too weak to compete-- like the CT Senate race.

He paints -- correctly, I think -- a picture of party politics in which the stronger party expands ideologically to fill any vacuum left by the weaker one. But Jerome -- what does this say about the nature of the parties? What, in particular, does it say about the idea, so beloved of you and your fellow Kosniks, that the Democrats are the more "progressive" party, if it's perfectly willing, given the opportunity, to do the Republicans' supposed job as well as its own?

First, the bad news. Here's what's going on.

[Quoting New York Times] "Despite the rush from many Democrats to endorse Mr. Lamont after his triumph -- only a handful chose personal loyalty to Mr. Lieberman over the Democratic nominee picked by voters -- some now quietly admit they would be satisfied to see their longtime colleague returned to Washington. But none of the Democrats would speak for attribution because of pressure to publicly appear supportive of their party's nominee, and they were granted anonymity so they could speak freely about their feelings toward Mr. Lieberman."

After the primary, DC Democrats dissuaded Lamont from attacking Lieberman, essentially promising him that they would talk Joe out of running. This was of course a lie, but it worked. They lied not only to Lamont, but to us, and to regular activist Democrats who work for the party and play by the rules.

When you run an anti-establishment campaign, even when you win the primary, never ever never ever never ever assume they're gonna back you. NEVER assume that. Most of the time they won't. ... That's why they have a stranglehold on "their" chosen ones. I have even seen the parties throw their own general election candidates to lose to the other side as punishment for a winning quixotic insurgent campaign.

Lamont people were bloody FOOLS to believe that bullshit from the party, for they are back-stabbing sons-of-bitches. NEVER EVER believe the party like Lamont did, because you'll get fucked every time.

GOP Doing Better in Northeast

[I]t now looks clear Joe Lieberman's independent bid for Senate is really helping the trio of Connecticut Republicans. It certainly would be ironic if the GOP held the House because of Ned Lamont's big August win.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-eln-election-rdp,0,5631888.story

Lieberman beat Lamont.

"In a remarkable comeback, Sen. Joe Lieberman won a new term in Connecticut -- dispatching Ned Lamont and winning when it counted most against the man who prevailed in a summertime primary. Lieberman ran as an independent, but will side with the Democrats when he returns to Washington."

Enter, Pariah: Now It's Hugs for Lieberman
By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - Senator Joseph I. Lieberman strode into a Democratic caucus gathering like he owned the place or, at the very least, like someone who is a flight risk and could leave at any minute, taking the Democrats' new majority with him.

In other words, everyone was extra-special nice to the wayward Democrat on Tuesday.

"It was all very warm, lots of hugs, high-fives, that kind of stuff," said Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado.... And Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas noted, "I gave him a hug and a kiss."

Mr. Lieberman received a standing ovation at a caucus luncheon after Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who is poised to become the majority leader, declared, "We're all family." ... "It's clear that the Democrats need him at this point more than he needs them," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, whom Mr. Lieberman genuinely does consider a close friend. "How sweet is this?"

Indeed, it is hard to imagine how Mr. Lieberman could have emerged better from last week's election. He was re-elected comfortably, and the Democratic Party he still belongs to is now in the majority, assuring him the chairmanship of the powerful Homeland Security Committee.

Yet that majority is slim enough, 51 to 49, to turn Mr. Lieberman into arguably the Senate's most influential member. If he defects, the Senate would effectively be under Republican control because Vice President Dick Cheney would cast tie-breaking votes.

....In recent months, Mr. Lieberman has frequently invoked the Harry Truman maxim that if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

If you can bear to contemplate the spectacle, though, it's an instructive one. The ascendancy of the aisle-crosser is not a new thing. Indeed, it's perennial and systematic, and it's the reason why the progs in the Democratic party are mere ornamental appendages, guaranteed to remain powerless in saecula saeculorum. For example, as happy pwog Nathan Newman observed, undermining his own case in a post quoted here a few days ago, "In 1981, Ronald Reagan was able to control the agenda in Congress because 67 Boll Weevil Democrats essentially caucused with the GOP." Examples could be multiplied, but you see the way the scam works; the pwogs watch helplessly as the aisle-crossers keep the ship of state listing to starboard.

Lieberman may be crazy, but he's not stupid, and True Believer pwog dems would do well to heed his wise advice about the dog.

I'm feeling magnanimous today, so here's a deal:

Dump Lieberman for his lunatic war hawkery -- go ahead, give the senate back to the Repubs, just for the satisfying sake of flushing that little turd -- and I'll support your prez candidate in '08 (as long as it's not Ma Clinton).

I may have my price, but I also have my pride.

La Huffington, Inc., reports:

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman [says] Barack Obama's actions since winning the presidency have been "just about perfect."

"Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration," Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford.

... Lieberman said he believes the rift between himself and the party stemmed mainly from his support of President Bush's policy in Iraq and will close as that becomes less of an issue.

"It appears to me that the war in Iraq is coming to a successful -- I don't want to say conclusion yet, but it's moving in a way that it will not be a divisive issue either in the Democratic Party or between Democrats and Republicans in the time ahead," Lieberman said. "And therefore, I think we'll return to more normal times, which I welcome."

"Normal times" indeed -- the Democrats are only anti-war when they're in opposition.

If then.

After this weekend's Lewis Carrollesque romp, pal Joey must be beloved of all those his colleagues spared by his brave sacrificial act. He's taken upon himself all the fury of an enraged nation -- hell, he's got to be up there with Madoff and GWB after this performance.

Well, somebody needed to fall on the people's hand grenade here, right? "Hineni," Spotlight Joe musta said to himself, without a blink, I bet. Always the bride, never the maid, this guy.

Here's an utterly apropos passage by a Sir Ken Macdonald, Brit labor hack -- in temporary remission, apparently -- cited in a recent Counterpunch column by a distant cousin of Pretty Boy Floyd. Macdonald is talking about Bush bat-boy Tony Blair, but the principle has wider application:

"Loyalty and service to power can sometimes count for more to insiders than any tricky questions of wider reputation. It’s the regard you are held in by your peers that really counts, so that steadfastness in the face of attack and threatened exposure brings its own rich hierarchy of honour and reward."

So Joe "Talks to God and won't let God get a word in edgewise" Lieberman is apparently not going to run again in 2012. There is a strange sense of anticlimax in this news.

Time was, one could actually care what this runt did or didn't do. Indeed, we wasted a fair amount of virtual ink on the garden gnome from Bridgeport right here at this very blog.

What were we thinking of? Surely it is clear that Joe's departure won't change a thing, and never would have? It's so easy to get caught up in the smell of the crowd and hiss the designated villain con brio along with everybody else.

Looking for someone who might give a shit about this development, I finally worked my way down the list to the dank moldy subbasement of Daily Kos, a space formerly used for temporary storage by Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb, where the general tone was one of peevish puerile Bronx-cheering. But God bless 'em, there are always realists at Kos more crackpot even than their wellmates:

Hopefully he joins Obamas cabinet (6+ / 0-)

Lieberman was excellent on Dadt, even when he apparently knew he would have to leave the Senate. In case you haven't noticed, he is a formidable foe and a powerful ally. So called moderates look to him for leadership. I'd rather have him on our side than against us. The last election, we got our ass handed to us in ways that it is still impossible to understand. So as mad as he made me, I want him with us not against us. We don't have a shortage of enemies, we have a shortage of allies and ideological purity ain't the answer. It's not personal. Strcitly business. Sometimes we lack that sense In the progressive community.

by jasonb on Tue Jan 18, 2011 at 03:28:45 PM PST

yep--it does our side no good (0+ / 0-)

to burn bridges.

for the 99 things liebermann did that pissed me off, i've still got to give him some credit for dadt.

i hope he does go to fox---and actually stands up for our side, even if only the moderate faction. hell, that would be better than we've got now.

by mama jo on Tue Jan 18, 2011 at 05:31:20 PM PST