Juan Cole on the Importance of Lieberman's Defeat

[CarolNYC]

Great piece on Juan Cole's blog about the importance of Lamont's victory to the Dems' chances at taking back the House....

Second and more important, Lieberman had aimed a poisoned arrow at the heart of every Democratic candidate when he said,

' "While dissent about the war is critically important and American, partisan dissent has no place when it comes to our national security, particularly when we have 130,000 Americans over there in uniform," he said. "So I refuse to take partisan shots at the president or anybody else about the war." '

Lieberman's stance would have been quoted ad nauseam in Republican Party advertisements. They would have used a leading Democrat to swiftboat the rest of the Party.

(snip)

In keeping with his foreign policy neoconservatism, Lieberman has McCarthyite tendencies and actually joined forces with Lynne Cheney to attack academics for being "un-American" if they questioned the central narrative of the Bush administration, which is that terrorism springs from intrinsic evil and that it is so powerful a threat that we Americans must now give up our traditions of free speech and dissent. Lieberman's McCarthyism is shameful, and all thinking Americans must rejoice to see Lynne's partner in auto-da-fe go down in flames.

(snip)

Finally, it is important because whether or not the liberal blogosphere played a significant role in dumping him, many will say that it did. Being perceived as powerful is almost as good as being powerful.

Lieberman may run as an independent, and we cannot know what will happen in that case. But for the reasons given above, it is important that he has been repudiated by Democratic voters. The rest of the party now has a shot at taking the House, without risking having their colleague's pro-Bush sanctimonies on Iraq constantly thrown in their faces. And the menace of senatorial McCarthyism and a further assault on the liberties of all Americans may have been forestalled.

http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/liebermans-defeat-it-is-very-important.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Wow

I hadn't thought of how the repukes could use Lieberman's words against us. Now they can't.

[CarolNYC]

5. Yeah, it's a great point...

that I hadn't thought of either....And it doesn't even matter what the hell selfish Joe does now...

Thanks to Ned and those who believed in him even when others thought they were living a fantasy...and to the Connecticut voters who came out in record numbers to make it happen. :toast:

[krkaufman]

7. Or how about one of Lieberman's latest quotes....

"... the left wing is taking over, the antisecurity wing." (link)

We don't need Democrats spouting Right Wing lies and spin.

[Cha]

10. bushco is the anti-security wing!

If lieberman would get his head out of bush's ass he could see that 9/11 happened on bushwatch and the August 6th memo was ignored and Al Gore would not have let that happen..and lieman was one of the Gore backstabbers.

So it really comes down to joe is a fucking idiot and needs to retire..he's a danger to our country.

[krkaufman]

11. Yep, pretty much.

(Iraq was known as a hazardous diversion, ports are still not secured, economic exploitation is hurting security, etc)

[tsuki]

2. A thinking man. nt

[enough]

3. Good article

snip>

Lieberman had bought into the Rove Master Narrative. Bush went to war electively, thus very conveniently making himself a war president and therefore above criticism. He got a second term that way despite having been among the worst presidents in history. Lieberman ceded to Bush a kind of invulnerability on the most important Republican Party SNAFU since its policies contributed to the onset of the Great Depression. Why would a Democrat do that?

The answer is that on foreign policy issues, Lieberman is a Neoconservative, and supports the Iraq project for the same reasons that Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz (then number 3 and 2 respectively at the Pentagon) did. He tried to put himself in the tradition of Hubert Humphrey, but he was more honest when he also listed Scoop Jackson. Perle and the rest started on Jackson's staff.

snip>

[depakid]

4. Good analysis

and I'm not always a Juan Cole fan.

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. excellent article -- a must read - recommended

[zanne]

8. Agreed. Let's celebrate our victory! nt

[Cha]

9. Oh, I'd say we're more than

just "perceived as powerful". Blogging is networking and we do get out of our pajamas once in awhile and take it to the streets.