Harold Meyerson op-ed in today's WaPo: "Lieberman vs. the Democrats"

[flpoljunkie]

Worth reading in its entirety. Excerpts below.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001439.html

Lieberman Vs. the Democrats

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; A21

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman is as seasoned a pol as anyone can find, but he seems to have forgotten the very purpose of elections.

In a remarkable interview he recently gave to The Post's David S. Broder , the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee sounded appalled that his fellow Democrats might, in his state's upcoming August primary, reject his reelection bid because he doesn't think his party should criticize the president on the conduct of the Iraq war. (By most indications, his primary opponent, businessman Ned Lamont, is mounting a strong challenge.)

<>Lieberman's problem is not that he faces expulsion from a sect but that he has chosen to stand outside what remains a big, messy tent of a party. Moreover, he seems to have reversed the roles that the two parties play when it comes to Iraq.

By criticizing the president on the war, he has said, the Democrats are playing partisan politics. His opponent, Lieberman told Broder, criticized him for breaking "Democratic unity. . . . Well, dammit, I wasn't thinking about Democratic unity. It was a moment to put the national interest above partisan interest."

How's that again? To criticize Bush on the war is partisan, while refusing to criticize Bush on the war affirms the national interest? That's taking a rather partisan -- a pro-Bush partisan -- view of the national interest. Lieberman is surely right that one party has exploited the war for partisan gain, but that party is the GOP. From forcing through a resolution authorizing the war on the eve of the 2002 elections to last week's vote in the House, the Republicans have continually used the war to play gotcha with any Democrats from swing states or districts with the guts to dissent from the administration's non-reality-based view of the conflict.

[Warpy]

1. Right on the money. Lieberman thinks he's ENTITLED

to the job. No politician is. They've gotten entirely too cozy with the idea of automatic returns to office from an ovine voting public, and the legacy to pass on to their offspring of officeholding and all the perks that will give them.

We've developed a separate political class in this country and it has to end.

If you like what these entitled and legacy pols are doing, then keep voting for them. If you don't, then it is your duty to VOTE THEM OUT.

[dpbrown]

2. Who was that Dem cracker who spoke at the Repub convention?

Lieberman is turning into that guy.

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Zell "I'd Challenge You to a Duel!" Miller!

:rofl:

[dpbrown]

5. That's it! People should start calling him Zell Lieberman...

Maybe he'd get the point.

Nah...he's a bit too full of himself.

:rofl:

[jsamuel]

6. Or Joe Zellerman

[dpbrown]

8. Now THAT'S got a ring to it.

:rofl:

[charlie]

7. Zell hasn't left the party

We can't make the hardheaded bastard leave, he won't take a hint. Joe, on the other hand, is playing coy about remaining a Democrat just because he feels he's not getting the lovin' he deserves. Zell's a dick, but he's not the spineless, blackmailing twerp Joe's turning out to be.

[charlie]

3. Lieberman's not just weirder

than anyone thinks he is, he's weirder than anyone can imagine. If Joe would just shut up until August, he'd still stand a decent chance of winning. But a mere primary challenge has got him so freaked, he's beaming in missives from Pluto. Keep it up Joe, we're digging the spectacle.

[Hubert Flottz]

9. Joe started seeing the wrighting on the wall when he counted up

his votes in the 2004 election.

His anger at that rejection, pushed him even more, in the direction he was already starting to go after 2000. Sometimes people have to pay for the awful things they do in anger! People lose their jobs over those types of fits of anger quite often, in the real world.

[applegrove]

10. Gop has wanted this for a long time.

[charlie]

11. Apparently

so have Connecticut Democrats, amongst other Democrats.