"No Mojo" (Hendrik Hertzberg on Joe Lieberman in the New Yorker)

[swag]

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060724ta_talk_hertzberg

. . . The speech also earned Lieberman his place on the 2000 ticket, as a way for Al Gore to distance himself from Clinton’s squalor. Lieberman’s seat was up that year, and he decided to run simultaneously for senator and Vice-President. Lyndon Johnson had taken out a similar insurance policy forty years earlier, but there was a difference. The governor of Texas in 1960 was a Democrat, so when Johnson resigned his Senate seat after the election a Democrat was appointed to replace him. The governor of Connecticut in 2000 was a Republican. If Lieberman had made way for the state’s popular Democratic attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who would have won easily, and if the Supreme Court had allowed Gore to take office, then the new Senate would have split 50-50, with Vice-President Lieberman breaking the tie in favor of the Democrats. But, by insisting on having it both ways, Lieberman single-handedly guaranteed that the new Senate would be Republican—either by a 51-49 margin under a Gore Administration or (as it turned out) by the tie-breaking vote of Vice-President Dick Cheney. This was more than just routine political expediency. It was what was known that year as a character issue.

Of course, these irritations wouldn’t much matter without Iraq. “Lieberman’s problem is not that he supported the Iraq invasion, nor that he thinks we need to stay in and finish the job,” Suzanne Nossel, a young ex-State Department official and a fellow at a think tank called the Security and Peace Initiative, wrote the other day. “He has lots of mainstream Democratic company in both those positions. The crux of Lieberman’s problem is his unwillingness to acknowledge the severity of what’s happened in Iraq, and to demand accountability for it.” Last week, as the skies over northern Israel and Lebanon turned red with rockets and bombs and the region lurched toward the brink of general war, the collapse of President Bush’s grand design for remaking the Middle East through invasion and occupation was more frighteningly obvious than ever. With the United States bogged down, militarily and diplomatically, in what it is now fair to call the quagmire of Iraq, Hezbollah and Hamas—and Iran and Syria, and, for that matter, Israel—feel increasingly free to do their worst.

If the Bush Administration, which still has two and a half years to go before America and the world are rid of it, is to be restrained and held accountable, then it is more important for at least one branch of the national legislature to be controlled by the opposition party than it is for Connecticut to be represented by a senator who is against—or for—the Iraq war. Ned Lamont, the earnest, mild-mannered J. P. Morgan heir who is the challenger in the Democratic primary, and has pledged to support Lieberman if the latter wins on August 8th, seems to have some inkling of this. The Senator does not. A couple of weeks ago, in a reprise of his 2000 maneuver, he suddenly announced that if he loses the primary he will seek a place on the November ballot as the candidate of a new “Connecticut for Lieberman” party. “I’m a loyal Democrat,” he told reporters, “but I have loyalties that are greater than those to my party.” No kidding.

[Rose Siding]

1. Quinnipac's poll is due out Thursday

There hasn't been a poll since early June and I'm holding my breath hoping Ned's hype won't out-distance his numbers. It's nerve-wracking!

[swag]

2. I'll be looking for your post.

Thanks.

As I've said, Montana is my adopted Senate race, but Connecticut is of national importance.

on edit: well so is the Montana race.

[babylonsister]

3. Ole Joe just ain't getting no respect, is he? Too bad respect

is earned, Joe, and in my eyes, you don't deserve it.

[swag]

4. He's taking a well-earned battering these days.

Let's hope he takes one at the polls.

[swag]

5. A kick before dying.