Anger at Lieberman & his ilk is not for "moderation" but dishonesty

[yurbud]

John Murtha in manis a moderate, but he is clearly not the tool of corporate America and the GOP like Joe Lieberman is.

The division is not ideology, but public interests versus very, very narrow private interests, and the decision between the two being decided exactly the way a street-walking hooker decides to get in a car--someone has to flash the green.

The real test of this is in a quote by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

When Joe can go to Iraq and say things look great and we ought to stay despite the daily deaths of ours troops, countless Iraqis, polls of Iraqis that say again, and again, and the Iraqi president and vice president asking us for a timetable to leave, he is not just wrong, he is bought.

He looks at the plain facts, then turns around and lies to our faces about them.

I have no problem with pols who start with moderate to conservative values so long as they adjust their policies and actions based on facts. If a policy is failing, they should acknowledge it. If a privatization or deregulation scheme hurt the public, they should acknowledge it and change it. If some social program doesn't actually lift people out of poverty, they should be willing to say so and try something else.

Even the conservative hero Ronald Reagan did this when he turned around and raised taxes.

Further, Lieberman doesn't seem to have too many "moderate" fans leaping to his defense, unless you buy the DLC argument that they represent the apathetic, non-activists in the party.

Guys like Lieberman get as far as they do not because the people demand them, but because in many races we aren't offered a real choice. Big money backs a Lieberman on one side and an even more obvious sellout on the GOP side.

Another problem with this is to the degree that Democrats are holding back in their criticism of Bush, by not vocally outlining the real reasons for the war in Iraq and who is profiting from it, they appear cowardly, bought, or hoping to be bought.

[Jacobin]

1. He's a lying neo-con

in a dem suit

[Warpy]

2. The root of conservatism is the fear of change

even necessary change. You may be asking too much of conservative politicians to realize that the old ways of thinking just aren't working any longer, to discard them, and to adopt new ways of thinking and new strategies.

If they were capable of doing this, they wouldn't be conservative.

[yurbud]

3. I agree in principle. My larger point was that it is not ideology that

restrains them. It's money.