Lieberman's Irrelevance in the New Year

[rodeodance]

yes, the less i hear of him the better!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20061222/cm_huffpost/036953

Ari Melber: Lieberman's Irrelevance in the New Year

Ari Melber Fri Dec 22, 10:29 AM ET

Here's a New Year's resolution that liberal bloggers and mainstream journalists can agree on: Let's talk less about
Joe Lieberman next year. A lot less.


For most of 2006, Connecticut's junior senator was relentlessly lambasted by bloggers, who jump-started Ned Lamont's successful primary campaign, and hailed by Beltway reporters, who celebrated Lieberman's re-election by declaring him the most pivotal member of a closely divided Senate. The unrelenting criticism, glorification and analysis of the political enigma that is Joe Lieberman could certainly benefit from benign neglect in 2007.

Yet just as Augustine prayed, "grant me chastity...but not yet," perhaps one last rehash of the fall and rise of Joe Lieberman is in order. Especially if it's a freewheeling, three-hour knock-down debate with strategists from the three campaigns from Connecticut's Senate race, local and national reporters, an academic pollster (and this writer) at a symposium convened by Lieberman's alma mater, Yale University. That was the scene this month, in two feisty panels that showed Lieberman's supporters and detractors still have plenty to fight about. (C-SPAN posted both panels here under "Conference on Connecticut Senate Race, Part 1.")

Bill Hillsman, a maverick adman who worked for Paul Wellstone and
Ralph Nader before helping Lamont's primary campaign, argued that Democrats would not have won Congress "if it wasn't for Ned Lamont." Across the country, he said, Democrats' antiwar ads and messages were pulled right from Lamont's playbook. "My cat could have run those ads," replied Lieberman strategist Roy Occhiogrosso. He said it was obvious that Democrats should run against the unpopular war. The two camps traded barbs in that vein for about half an hour.

Then the discussion turned to the elephant in the room, but absent from the panel. What exactly did those famous bloggers do?........

[movonne]

1. vote this up...

[JeffR]

2. Joe who?

eom

[rodeodance]

3. k

[Hippo_Tron]

4. Don't worry, I hear there's a new Mortal Kombat game coming out this Christmas

Joementum will find any way possible to feed his ego.

[Cha]

5. lieman will definetly find a

spotlight and slither into it.

[RiverStone]

6. Agreed! That also means no more...

...starting "Lets talk less about Loserman threads" as indeed by doing so, we ARE still talking about him.

In return, this will be the last Loserman thread I will repond to - - - ever.

Yes, lets hope he fades and fades away.

[Zhade]

7. "He said it was obvious that Democrats should run against the unpopular war."

And yet, lieberman DIDN'T run against the war, and still supports it.

Which begs the question - with the war being out of favor with the majority of U.S. citizens, why did CT voters vote this fucker back in?

[Greeby]

8. Of course it didn't help that he was being supported by certain Senators

As opposed to the actual Democratic nominee :eyes:

[LeftishBrit]

11. It also didn't help that the Republicans left the field to him, by shoving their own candidate under

the bus, while exclaiming piously about the wickedness of the Democrats in 'purging' *their* candidate.

[Larkspur]

13. Actually, Lieberman pulled a Nixon on the war

He said, "No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do and bring our troops home" .

And he said a few more things like that, so the anti-war movement did have an affect on Lieberman's message near the end of the general election. His advisors knew that Lieberman's pro-war stance hurt his chances of winning the election.

[Le Taz Hot]

9. He's not going to seem irrelavent

when he

a) changes parties and/or
b) votes with the Republicans, particularly on Middle East issues.

I've not wanted to rain on anyone's parade here but the 51/49 Democratic majority in the Senate is in numnbers only. Lieberman, Landreau, and Nelson are too fond of voting with the Republicans too much of the time. And when it comes time for them to choose sides between the banking industry and the consummers, you'll find even more defectors.

I don't really think he'll change parties because he'll like the courting he'll get from both sides. It appeals to his megalomanic personality.

[Buzz Clik]

10. exactly.

Lots and lots of politcal capital being exchanged. Joe is one of the most powerful men on The Hill, like it or not.

[left is right]

12. He's walking dead

but the corpse will take 6 years to lie down