http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/30/131257/698Everytime I hear someone blather about "moderate" or "centrist" I harken back to this:
John Podesta, president of the progressive Center for American Progress (CAP), faced pointed questions from lawmakers at last Thursday's New Democrat Coalition (NDC) meeting about an inflammatory e-mail his organization sent to liberal activists and bloggers.
In a March 9 e-mail, David Sirota, a fellow at CAP, accused 16 pro-business Democrats of supporting bankruptcy-reform legislation because they received political contributions from the commercial banks and credit-card companies that stand to benefit if the legislation becomes law.
The e-mail coursed through the blogosphere and generated angry phone calls from liberal activists to the offices of the 16 centrist Democrats. Sirota, a former minority spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, criticized 16 of the 20 Democrats who wrote Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) March 7 urging him to bring bankruptcy reform to the House floor <...>
According to an aide familiar with the meeting, one lawmaker said, "There is a school of thought out there that we should `shoot all the centrists,' so John, are you of that school or do you want us to just go ahead and shoot ourselves now?"
This incident rests in my mind as the consumate example of the fiction of the "centrist" label. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and I remember exactly what we were asking of those members of the NDC:
"What, exactly, is 'centrist' about the bankruptcy bill?"
Was it supported by a majority of the American people, putting it squarely in the political mainstream? Nope. It was a corporate giveaway to the credit card industry. Nothing more. Nothing less. People like me and Sirota and countless others pleaded to the NDC to explain why they called the bill "centrist", we promised to lay off once they exlained themselves, but we never got a single answer. Not one.
<my emphasis>
Because they couldn't. There is nothing "centrist" about the bankruptcy bill, just as much of what passes as "centrism" in DC is nothing of the sort.
Sirota is dead on.
So is Lieberman a "centrist"? Well, in the DC formulation of the word, sure. He's well-entrenched in the DC establishment, he's a corporate lobbyist's wet dream, he cheerleads military adventures abroad without shouldering any of the hardship, and he's quick to abandon party loyalty (and principles) for an opportunity to earn kudos from George Bush and Sean Hannity.
Under any rational definition of "centrist", Lieberman wouldn't qualify.
But really, there is nothing rational about DC or it's media establishment.