When Craven Idols Fall
I have been away on a seriously needed rehab/vacation program for a good part of the last couple weeks, hence the hiatus in posts. Knowing my place, far down the ladder from a serious, sought-out ("destination"?) blog, I did not widely advertise the pending silence. Learning now that one reader actually noticed my absence, I must offer apologies that I did not offer up an official warning. This isn't the sort of operation where substitute bloggers are recruited, but I'm flattered and humbled at even one grumble over the silence.
I do have intention to limn the vacation a bit, but not here and now. We have some celebrating to do. The improbable victory of Ned Lamont in the D Senatorial primary in Connecticut primary yesterday will reverberate for some time to come I believe. It will be a matter of great interest to me how this is "handled" in the MSM (especially television) where it seems most of the masses choose exclusively to expose themselves to anything resembling current events and hope to be instructed as to how to interpret same. As things are these days, I admit that strikes me as akin to a penlight-based tanning salon, but I have come to understand if not accept that UV sensitivity (not to mention curiosity and an appetite for information) can vary tremendously between individuals.
I am going to tamp down my own opinions at this point given that I have a considerable quantity of better-informed commentary that I'm eager to pass on.
Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory fame has been blogging at Salon of late. I have excerpts from two of his posts here, oreo'd around creme of Dan Froomkin's Washington Post blog. Yes, it is longer than normal fortune in cookie (ok, slightly mixed 'phor, but same genre, right?), but you're good for it, I can assure you, if you made it this far. And it's better for you than either type of cookie, I'm thinking.
The sad, sorry state of Joe Lieberman
Most of the ramifications of Joe Lieberman's extraordinary defeat will require some time to discern, but one thing is already painfully clear. With his behavior Tuesday night, Lieberman has turned himself into the most vivid symbol of the insular, arrogant, corrupt and power-desperate Washington establishment, the sheer cravenness and corruption of which are what catalyzed the campaign against him in the first place.
Those who compose that entrenched Beltway power establishment -- the endlessly reelected political officials, the hordes of consultants and lobbyists who feed off and control them, and the pampered, self-loving "journalists" who enable it all -- are characterized by a single-minded quest to perpetuate their own power, flavored by a thinly masked contempt for the masses on whose behalf this system ostensibly plods along. Lieberman's conduct last night was a perfect textbook for all of those afflictions.
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The man whose (largely Republican) media supporters glorified him as one of the few "men of principle" left in Washington has revealed himself to be bereft of all principles save one -- the "principle" that Joe Lieberman's Senate seat belongs to him personally and that no mere voters, those silly, unenlightened masses, have the right to take that away from him. In the face of this rare testament to true democracy -- the decisive rejection of Lieberman by Connecticut voters in defiance of virtually the entire national political establishment -- Lieberman had nothing but scorn, contempt and defiance for their decision.
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And this "man of principle," this elevated gentleman who is too pure and righteous for Washington, will do all of that [run as independent] for one reason and one reason only -- because he is too weak and selfish to give up his Senate seat and accept the decision of Connecticut voters that they want a different senator representing their interests in Washington. The fallout from the well-deserved and desperately needed blow dealt to the national political establishment will be unclear for some time to come, but one thing that is not unclear is Joe Lieberman's character. He has revealed it for all to see.
The Anti-Bush Movement
Political fledgling Ned Lamont's unlikely triumph over President Bush's favorite Democrat in the Connecticut Senate primary lends itself to all sorts of fascinating interpretations -- and one is that it could mark the emergence of an anti-Bush voting bloc.
Lamont's out-of-nowhere victory, fueled by his depiction of incumbent Joseph Lieberman as a presidential patsy, suggests a political awakening of that sizeable group of Americans who intensely disapprove of Bush, his war in Iraq, and pretty much anything else he touches.
Consider that, according to the latest Washington Post poll, a near-majority of Americans -- 46 percent -- strongly disapprove of the job Bush is doing. That's strongly. Another 12 percent somewhat disapprove.
On Iraq, which is the dominant political issue going into the 2006 election, 62 percent disapprove of Bush's leadership (52 percent strongly).
Political guru Karl Rove won his boss a second term in 2004 by making that election less a referendum on Bush as on his opponent, John Kerry. But the potential here is that the 2006 congressional elections could turn out to be the "accountability moment" that Bush retroactively claimed the 2004 election to have been, in a Washington Post interview in January 2005.
That's certainly what Lamont was telling Connecticut voters yesterday, in a message on his Web site: "Your vote will determine the national headlines tomorrow: 'Connecticut Democrats show support for war, President Bush' or 'Democrats in Connecticut foreshadow national call for accountability in Iraq.' Your call."
Analysis and Opinion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Nagourney writes in the New York Times: "The victory of Ned Lamont over Joseph I. Lieberman, a three-term senator and former vice presidential candidate, was a vivid demonstration of how the Iraq war is buffeting American politics and of the deep hostility toward President Bush among Democrats. It also suggested there are stiff anti-status-quo winds blowing across the political landscape as the fall elections approach. . . .
"For Republicans already contemplating a gloomy fall horizon, the Lamont victory suggested that many Democrats -- stirred by their opposition to the war and hostility toward Mr. Bush -- are as energized as any group of voters in years, enough so to move them to the voting booth in huge numbers. . . .
" 'This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means,' said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the leader of the Democratic House Congressional campaign. 'This is not about the war. It's blind loyalty to Bush.' "
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And here's a New York Times editorial : "The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president's choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration's contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.
"Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person's right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative."
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A message from Connecticut to national Democrats
We see this morning the purest sign of the vibrancy of our democratic process: national Democrats, who with virtual unanimity supported Joe Lieberman, are now rushing to express unambiguous support for Ned Lamont. Here is the joint statement from Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer:
"The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fully support Mr. Lamont's candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.
"Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush, and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction."
-clip-
If the Lieberman defeat truly was, as Reid and Schumer described it this morning, "a referendum on the president more than anything else," then it is also a message to Democrats that they must immediately shed their palpable fear of tenaciously fighting and blocking the president's agenda in Washington. Vigorous opposition to Bush and his policies is what galvanized such an intense and energized campaign to defeat Lieberman. That is the energy Democrats must tap into and inspire in order to win in November.
Democrats will be able to do that only by demonstrating -- for the first time during the Bush presidency -- that they are willing to stand up to Bush and his congressional loyalists, even if it means defying the deadly risk-averse advice of their Beltway consultants and incurring the wrath of the pompous, out-of-touch national media pundits. The Democrats' ability to defeat the Bush-led Republican machine in November requires the passion and energies of those who just brought down a three-term senator in Connecticut. Those are the voices to which national Democrats must listen if they are to put an end to the Bush stranglehold on our government.
I do have intention to limn the vacation a bit, but not here and now. We have some celebrating to do. The improbable victory of Ned Lamont in the D Senatorial primary in Connecticut primary yesterday will reverberate for some time to come I believe. It will be a matter of great interest to me how this is "handled" in the MSM (especially television) where it seems most of the masses choose exclusively to expose themselves to anything resembling current events and hope to be instructed as to how to interpret same. As things are these days, I admit that strikes me as akin to a penlight-based tanning salon, but I have come to understand if not accept that UV sensitivity (not to mention curiosity and an appetite for information) can vary tremendously between individuals.
I am going to tamp down my own opinions at this point given that I have a considerable quantity of better-informed commentary that I'm eager to pass on.
Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory fame has been blogging at Salon of late. I have excerpts from two of his posts here, oreo'd around creme of Dan Froomkin's Washington Post blog. Yes, it is longer than normal fortune in cookie (ok, slightly mixed 'phor, but same genre, right?), but you're good for it, I can assure you, if you made it this far. And it's better for you than either type of cookie, I'm thinking.
The sad, sorry state of Joe Lieberman
Most of the ramifications of Joe Lieberman's extraordinary defeat will require some time to discern, but one thing is already painfully clear. With his behavior Tuesday night, Lieberman has turned himself into the most vivid symbol of the insular, arrogant, corrupt and power-desperate Washington establishment, the sheer cravenness and corruption of which are what catalyzed the campaign against him in the first place.
Those who compose that entrenched Beltway power establishment -- the endlessly reelected political officials, the hordes of consultants and lobbyists who feed off and control them, and the pampered, self-loving "journalists" who enable it all -- are characterized by a single-minded quest to perpetuate their own power, flavored by a thinly masked contempt for the masses on whose behalf this system ostensibly plods along. Lieberman's conduct last night was a perfect textbook for all of those afflictions.
-clip-
The man whose (largely Republican) media supporters glorified him as one of the few "men of principle" left in Washington has revealed himself to be bereft of all principles save one -- the "principle" that Joe Lieberman's Senate seat belongs to him personally and that no mere voters, those silly, unenlightened masses, have the right to take that away from him. In the face of this rare testament to true democracy -- the decisive rejection of Lieberman by Connecticut voters in defiance of virtually the entire national political establishment -- Lieberman had nothing but scorn, contempt and defiance for their decision.
-clip-
And this "man of principle," this elevated gentleman who is too pure and righteous for Washington, will do all of that [run as independent] for one reason and one reason only -- because he is too weak and selfish to give up his Senate seat and accept the decision of Connecticut voters that they want a different senator representing their interests in Washington. The fallout from the well-deserved and desperately needed blow dealt to the national political establishment will be unclear for some time to come, but one thing that is not unclear is Joe Lieberman's character. He has revealed it for all to see.
The Anti-Bush Movement
Political fledgling Ned Lamont's unlikely triumph over President Bush's favorite Democrat in the Connecticut Senate primary lends itself to all sorts of fascinating interpretations -- and one is that it could mark the emergence of an anti-Bush voting bloc.
Lamont's out-of-nowhere victory, fueled by his depiction of incumbent Joseph Lieberman as a presidential patsy, suggests a political awakening of that sizeable group of Americans who intensely disapprove of Bush, his war in Iraq, and pretty much anything else he touches.
Consider that, according to the latest Washington Post poll, a near-majority of Americans -- 46 percent -- strongly disapprove of the job Bush is doing. That's strongly. Another 12 percent somewhat disapprove.
On Iraq, which is the dominant political issue going into the 2006 election, 62 percent disapprove of Bush's leadership (52 percent strongly).
Political guru Karl Rove won his boss a second term in 2004 by making that election less a referendum on Bush as on his opponent, John Kerry. But the potential here is that the 2006 congressional elections could turn out to be the "accountability moment" that Bush retroactively claimed the 2004 election to have been, in a Washington Post interview in January 2005.
That's certainly what Lamont was telling Connecticut voters yesterday, in a message on his Web site: "Your vote will determine the national headlines tomorrow: 'Connecticut Democrats show support for war, President Bush' or 'Democrats in Connecticut foreshadow national call for accountability in Iraq.' Your call."
Analysis and Opinion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Nagourney writes in the New York Times: "The victory of Ned Lamont over Joseph I. Lieberman, a three-term senator and former vice presidential candidate, was a vivid demonstration of how the Iraq war is buffeting American politics and of the deep hostility toward President Bush among Democrats. It also suggested there are stiff anti-status-quo winds blowing across the political landscape as the fall elections approach. . . .
"For Republicans already contemplating a gloomy fall horizon, the Lamont victory suggested that many Democrats -- stirred by their opposition to the war and hostility toward Mr. Bush -- are as energized as any group of voters in years, enough so to move them to the voting booth in huge numbers. . . .
" 'This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means,' said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the leader of the Democratic House Congressional campaign. 'This is not about the war. It's blind loyalty to Bush.' "
-clip-
And here's a New York Times editorial : "The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president's choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration's contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.
"Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person's right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative."
-clip-
A message from Connecticut to national Democrats
We see this morning the purest sign of the vibrancy of our democratic process: national Democrats, who with virtual unanimity supported Joe Lieberman, are now rushing to express unambiguous support for Ned Lamont. Here is the joint statement from Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer:
"The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fully support Mr. Lamont's candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.
"Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush, and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction."
-clip-
If the Lieberman defeat truly was, as Reid and Schumer described it this morning, "a referendum on the president more than anything else," then it is also a message to Democrats that they must immediately shed their palpable fear of tenaciously fighting and blocking the president's agenda in Washington. Vigorous opposition to Bush and his policies is what galvanized such an intense and energized campaign to defeat Lieberman. That is the energy Democrats must tap into and inspire in order to win in November.
Democrats will be able to do that only by demonstrating -- for the first time during the Bush presidency -- that they are willing to stand up to Bush and his congressional loyalists, even if it means defying the deadly risk-averse advice of their Beltway consultants and incurring the wrath of the pompous, out-of-touch national media pundits. The Democrats' ability to defeat the Bush-led Republican machine in November requires the passion and energies of those who just brought down a three-term senator in Connecticut. Those are the voices to which national Democrats must listen if they are to put an end to the Bush stranglehold on our government.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:41 PM
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