BY THERSITES:
Here's a jaw-dropper: Joe Lieberman, former Democratic Party vice-presidential nominee, puts his personal interests so far ahead of the party's interests that he is refusing to rule out a run as an independent if he loses the party's nomination to Ned Lamont. Update, April 9: Here's the astounding quote from Lieberman.
Here's another jaw-dropper: Connecticut's other senator, Chris Dodd -- a former DNC Chair! -- also refuses to say whether he'll support Lamont if Lamont wins the Democratic nomination.
Puts Barack Obama's loyalty to Lieberman -- and his opposition to the Alito filibuster, and his opposition to censure, and his support for newcomer Tami Duckworth over long-time Democratic loyalist Christine Cegelis -- into perspective, doesn't it?
We don't need to start a new party. We need to reclaim our party from these people, so they can start their own third party, with Lieberman as its nominee. The Good Old Boy Party, they can call it. G.O.B. -- just like the G.O.P., only a tiny bit to its left, at least alphabetically.
My angry suit's only been back on for 24 hours and it's already feeling really comfortable again...
Action:
Donate, donate, donate to Ned Lamont here. It's the most important race in the country; put some spare change behind it. And visit ConnecticutBlog to make one little phone call to put the fear of the electorate into Sen. Dodd. Reportedly, his office doesn't even ask where you're from when you call.
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1 comment:
Katherine:
I understand where you're coming from, and in fact I've taken flak from some of my readers for being willing to tolerate some centrist or even conservative Democrats instead of immediately labeling them "Vichys." So I don't automatically hold it against a politician who votes against the party line on occasion. I've also taken flak from readers for saying that there are "liberal" Democrats (i.e., relatively progressive on the issues) who are still bad guys because they're gaming the system in an undemocratic way; Obama is one of those.
My beef isn't with Obama's votes, it's with the choices he's made in the "power politics" game. Even while he was publicly undecided on the Alito filibuster, he was actively encouraging other senators to vote for cloture. He campaigned hard for Tammy Duckworth over Christine Cegelis in the Illinois primary (one of my beefs is with party officials who give their preferred candidate an unfair boost over other good candidates in primaries instead of letting the voters decide). He decided whether or not to attend the Lieberman fundraiser, and wouldn't have suffered electorally in his own state if he'd "had a scheduling conflict", but he not only chose to attend, but boosted Lieberman over his Democratic primary opponent, Ned Lamont (again, why is he taking sides in a primary?)
Obama's not the usual freshman senator trying to get secure enough to win re-election. He's positioning himself as a power player within the Democratic Party, and he's doing it with the backing of the DLC crowd I despise, and by engineering the outcomes of primary contests that should be democratic. Political pragmatism doesn't excuse that.
I've got other posts on this topic here, here, here, here, here.
If you still think I'm off-base, though, I'd like to hear it. I don't want to slam a guy who doesn't deserve it, if you can show me why that's the case!
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