'Lieberman became the most prominent spokesman for GOP strategy'

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Campaign 2006: A Hawk Stays Aloft
The politics of terror may just keep Joe Lieberman in office.

By Jonathan Darman
Newsweek
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14323596/site/newsweek/

Aug. 21-28, 2006 issue - Joe Lieberman awoke last Wednesday with few prospects and no party. He'd lost the Democratic primary for his own Senate seat to challenger Ned Lamont and the army of "Netroots" Internet activists who'd hammered Lieberman's stubborn defense of the Iraq war. Even some of his friends thought his announced independent candidacy would be a sad and solitary quest.

But then came Thursday, with chilling news of a terror plot in Great Britain, and suddenly it was clear that Lieberman would not go gently. "If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do," he warned a campaign crowd, "get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes." Hawkish Joe was back: early polls showed him leading Lamont in the general election.

And so, at least for one day, Joe Lieberman became the most prominent spokesman for the Republican strategy in 2006: paint Iraq critics as frail on national security at a time when our foes are at their fiercest. The GOP has moved aggressively to capitalize on Lieberman's defeat and the subsequent London terror news. On Friday, the Republican National Congressional Committee circulated a memo urging Republican candidates to jump on the week's headlines: "Recent events have reminded us that we continue to operate in a pivotal phase in the global war on terror," it read. "You should move to question your opponent's commitment to the defeat of terror and ... create a definitive contrast on this issue."

The GOP has artfully used that script in the last two election cycles. Its appeal had seemed to wane as anger over the Iraq war mounted. But Karl Rove and the Republicans now see a new opportunity in "Lamontism"—the idea that liberal Democrats will risk failure in Iraq to score points with a public grown weary of war. (Lamont favors withdrawal of the troops from Iraq but redeployment elsewhere in the Middle East.)

. . . Now GOP candidates across the country who have feared the mention of combat on the campaign trail are embracing it once again—hoping that one last time, Americans will come to see the conflict in Iraq as indivisible from the broader war on terror.


full article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14323596/site/newsweek/

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1. GOP Joe makes a comeback on the wings of terror.

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2. Liebermanism

Using the terrorist threats to score political points

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3. Joe Lieberman has become a terrorist

Threatening that we will experience violence if he and his GOP pals are not reelected.

I am really starting to HATE Joe.

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4. The Party that presided over 9-11

got us bogged down in a Quagmire in Iraq.

The GOP has failed to reduce the threat to our nation, our allies, or our interests.