You Are All Extremists

[IDemo]

-Los Angeles City Beat

American politics is all about extremes. And that includes you. If you happen to be opposed to our catastrophic war in Iraq – as a solid 60 percent of Americans are – and then actually vote accordingly, you are not a member of the political mainstream, but a dangerous anarchist of the extreme left. That was the excuse of Senator Joe Lieberman this week, after his embarrassing defeat in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary. Bloggers must have sabotaged him, say supporters, so now he will run as independent in the November general election, just to teach those extreme voters of his own party a hard lesson.

Antiwar Democrats are calling this a referendum on President Bush and his blunder in Iraq. That is only partly true. It is actually a referendum on a loyal opposition party that failed to vote against an unnecessary war. In California last June, Democratic incumbent Rep. Jane Harman won her primary in California’s 36th District with a comfortable margin, but a challenge by activist Marcy Winograd already revealed growing voter displeasure with Democrats who blindly supported Bush’s war. Look for more of the same this fall.

It has been noted that Sen. Lieberman voted about 90 percent of the time with the Democratic congressional agenda, suggesting that only on the Iraq war has he veered towards the president. Even if that were true – and it isn’t – it ignores the obvious fact that waging war in Iraq overshadows everything else. It isn’t merely that it is costing American lives and draining the U.S. economy. It’s that it was a mistake, a “preemptive” war waged on false information and bad faith. On perhaps the most important issue of his career – and war always overshadows everything – Lieberman and a startling number of his fellow Democrats failed.

And those who dare to change their views are called extreme. Even Rep. John Murtha, a veteran of 37 years in U.S. Marines and longtime congressional advocate for defense, is now labeled dangerous to the welfare of our boys and girls traveling the Sunni Triangle, just for daring to step away from current war policy.

The war in Iraq was a tragic misstep of historic proportions, and that is not just the view of “extremists” on the left, but is shared by many prominent conservatives. Lieberman put himself on the wrong side of that equation and then compounded his blunder by refusing to accept a change that most voters demand. And that is the most extreme error of all.

http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=4182&IssueNum=166