Not quite. He is being opposed because he contintues to support the war.
Piffle. There is a vast chasm between “not hating” and “not supporting”. Its the supporting that is the issue, not some raving emotional tantrum of fanatical “Bush haters”. He could have played all the kissy-face he wanted to, if he simply did not offer any other support for a failed, disastrous policy.
Offered with shock and horror. “The raving loonies of the Moore-Soros juggernaut of taken a wildly radical position shared by the majority of the people! Bad craziness!”
If the people lead, the leaders will follow. The “NetRoots crowd” didn’t change any minds. The facts on the ground changed people’s minds. That and the mainstream tedia who simply refused to show all the good news, the painted schoohouses. *Feh! * as they say in Lubbock.
He is. Period. Full stop.
Other sources indicate that his long-standing nickname derives from his own attitude of personal piety, a “wouldn’t say ‘shit’ if he had a mouthful” attitude.
I suppose, if having the majority of the American electorate in agreement spells disaster. A rather odd proposition.
Which is bound to quicken the pace of the Libertarian Party’s rise to world domination.
This is all true, of course. I was just trying to gloss past the complications.
I figure most Congresscritters who voted for the resolution were voting for war. And some Congresscritters who supported the resolution figured this gave Bush the best chance to keep us out of a war. But I figured everyone who voted against the resolution was also against a war, and there were enough of these to point out that Kagan was full of it, even without considering the middle category of Congresscritters.
GIGObuster - thanks for remembering that thread, after all these years!
Yeah, I used the worng tense there. If only I had already said something similar:
I siad nothing of “shock and horror”. You just added that to make it look hysterical. I just called it the way I see it.
Dude, before you go off the deep end here, go back and read the other stuff I’ve posted here. I’m not rooting for Lieberman. It’s not the outcome I worry about in CT, but the process that gets there. Knowing your poltical positions as I do, I submit that you being happy with the way things are going is a clear indication of political disaster.
That’s redundant. Saying it twice doesn’t make up for lack of supporting data.
That simply makes not sense at all. You are conflating the center of gravity on one issue (the Iraq war) with the center of gravity across all issues.
Hey, they got .3% last time. It’s hard to go anywhere but up. I’m a small “l” libertarian anyway, and very rarely vote for the bign “L” types. They’re pretty nutty.
As for the AUMF-- nice to see you’re still sticking with the eye-rolling claim that it wasn’t a vote for war. What’s your favored term-- a semantic nitpick of no consequence? They knew what they were voting for, as did we all. Call it what you want, but the public sees it for it really was.
Permit to emphasize a point. War hysteria creates a gale-force headwind for those who might oppose war. Craven and cynical demands to “support our troops”, insinuations of disloyalty and cowardice, the near-universal appeal of patriotism, and the hunger for vengeance created by 9/11 (Hit somebody! Anybody! But hit somebody! Now!)
And yet the wild-eyed radical moonbats managed to convince a majority of the country to turn away! Of course, their utter dominance of media outlets was a big help. That, and the fact that most people can recognize a boiling cauldron of rat turds if they get close enough to smell it…)
(Note to self: get a Dixie Chicks CD for John-boy’s Xmas stocking. His gambling debts being as they are, he’d appreciate it…)
Swiftboating is a rather specific term. If you want to downgrade that to ‘politics as usual’ we can move on to the mechanism by which a Lieberman loss will lead to the destruction of the democratic party. I’m not seeing that either.
While the righties play their “terrorism” card, you lefties just love to play the victim card, don’t you? I couldn’t vote my conscience-- the other side might call me bad names! Funny thing, though, 'luc. On matters belli, you and I are generally in agreement. Iraq war = bad, from day 1.
I don’t see why it’s so important to make excuses for those who voted to authorize Bush to use military force. All I care about at this point is what’s their plan to get us out of that mess?
Just this, for now. I’ll eviscerate the other stuff after my nap. Unless Arty has already done so.
The Iraq War should be the center of gravity. Yes, I care about stem cells and the Bushiviks fellating of Big Energy. But this is huge! We are going to be paying for this debacle for years to come. (What kind of Ricky Retardo starts a hugely expensive war and cuts taxes at the same time?)
The long and agonizing process of rehabilitating our reputation in the world at large must begin sometime. Yesterday would have been better, tomorrow may be all we can hope for. Probably more than we deserve.
The Iraq War is the rotting elephant corpse in the living room.
They did, didn’t they? I live in MN, and I saw how they went after Paul Wellstone so that they could install that human custard, Coleman. Dirty? Podnuh, that ain’t half! Why did they do that? Perhaps because it worked?
I appreciate and applaud your concurrence. But you manage, somehow, to phrase your agreement in such belligerant terms.
There may not be a plan. There almost certainly not a “good” plan, no “peace with honor” is likely. We have fixed it beyond all recognition. An ugly, ugly truth.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing about his overall voting record. But his real impact is on the discussion - he’s a regular on the political talk shows, getting more TV time there than any other Dem, IIRC. And when he’s there, he has a marked tendency to repeat Rovian talking points about his own party.
As long as Lieberman’s around, there’ll always be a Dem the wingers can point to and say, “even he says the libruls are evil.”
He didn’t just support a war; his view of how things are going is divorced from reality. In the Lamont debate, he said Iraq was better now than it was last year.
And as far as the ‘not a real Dem’ business, see above. He’s always been ready to attack his own. He attacked Bill Clinton for his transgressions in '98, but when the Abu Ghraib story broke in '04, all of a sudden moral issues weren’t quite as important. (Even though both stories involved women’s underwear.)
It’s a political virtue if your working with the other party can get you some of what your party wants, as well as getting the other party some of what they want. What’s Lieberman gotten for the Dems by working with the GOP? Don’t get me started on the Gang of 14: looks like he kept the judicial filibuster technically alive, but permanently unusable.
He’s derisively called ‘Holy Joe’ because he’s able to reach out ot people of faith who want to ban other people from doing things they don’t like. He’s a sanctimonious twit, that’s why he’s called Holy Joe.
Why, does someone want to do this? Name names, please. Who is part of this amorphous ‘some’?
For the umpteenth time, I think you misread what people are saying.
Even on this MB, I doubt that many want the Dems to move noticeably to the left. I know what I want is for the Dems to stand for the very same things domestically that they supposedly stand for, but always seem to waffle on when push comes to shove. And on the war, I’m happy with that letter the Congressional leadership sent Bush the other day. (Wasn’t Lieberman the only Dem Senator who didn’t sign?)
The question is, where are rank-and-file Democrats in all this? The proportion of them who read the blogs can’t be all that big. We know where the Washington pols and insiders are, we know where the big-shot pundits are, we know where the DLC and the New Republic are, and we know where the netroots are.
But whatever happens, it’s an overall win for Dems if the national party is a good reflection of the people who vote Democratic. I think that’s one of the reasons why primaries are good - it allows for that kind of sorting-out process, to ascertain whether the people who may have well represented Democratic sentiment many years ago still do.
I could be wrong, but I think an awful lot of Dems are tired of the Congressional Dems wimping out to the GOP all the time, and want them to take a stand, to oppose on a much more frequent basis. That’s part of what we should find out in this primary. Lieberman has done little of that, and Lamont says that’s what he’ll do. I’d say that, more than anything else, is the core issue of this primary.
But there’s no way to move the discussion forward without having primaries like these. If the DC leadership of the party tries to save the party from its own grassroots, then all you have is a frustrating disconnect between the party elites and those grassroots. Maybe the DC leadership really does understand the mood of the grassroots as a whole better than the netroots do, but that’s what we’ll get a glimpse of when the results come in.
!. pro war
2.warm to privatization of soc. sec.
3.voted for Alito and Roberts
4.Supported Clinton censure
5.helped the bankrupsy bill
6.wanted free trade pact with Oman
7. anti national health plan
8.supported repub energy bill
9.super pro phamacy they are huge contributors.
10.voted to intervene in Shiavo
11. voted for Gonzales
12. threatened to bolt party if he loses.
Not just the war.
I think the days when the Pubbies could just mention the word “terrorism” and have the voters cast their GOP votes out of fear are over. The Washington Post has some interesting poll data. If you scroll down, you’ll find these questions:
Which political party do you trust to do a better job in handling:
a) the situation in Iraq. It is Democrats 43-40 over Republicans. Actually the Pubs have narrowed the gap somewhat, it was 50-36 Dems on 5/15/06. But a far cry from the 58-32 drubbing that the Republicans were giving it to the Dems on 10/27/02.
b) the US campaign against terrorism. It is Democrats 46-38 over Republicans. This is a new high water mark for the Dems, and contrasts sharply with the 62-23 advantage that the GOP enjoyed in 1/27/02.
So this notion of “if Lieberman loses, then the Dems again look like pussies on defense matters and will get blown away again” is pure hokum. Terrorism is no longer a slam dunk advantage for the Republicans.
With regard to Connecticut, I’d say “no”. Unless someone comes forth with evidence that Ned Lamont is some kind of Commie sleeper pinko Manchurian candidate. (The guy’s a multimillionaire and one of the Lieberman campaign’s earlier tactics was to paint him as a guy who voted too often with Republicans on the Greenwich city council.)
Please, let us all try to move past this simplistic “centrist/extremist” crap. It doesn’t begin to describe what is happening in Connecticut.
As much as Fox News would prefer that not to be true, I believe you are correct. Here’s Fox News speculating “Have the Democrats forgotten the lessons of 9/11?” under a picture of Ned Lamont juxtaposed against a shot presumedly from the Middle East, as well as another screen shot of Lieberman, Lamont and a tank in the Middle East, captioned “A Lamont Win, Bad News for Democracy in Mideast?”
I’m very grateful to Fox News trying to help the Democrats avoid bringing about the end of the Democratic Party!
Is that what we’re calling “willing to discuss changes to SS” these days?
No, he voted against.
As did half the other Democrats.
As did most democrats.
It’s tempting to sit down to dinner at the NetRoots’ house. They serve a delicioius main course-- guerre d’iraq, flambe. Just be careful about the dessert-- it looks like, but is not Apple Pie. And whatever happens, do not take any left-overs home with you to munch on later. Those will make you heave, and you’ll end up with an empty stomache afterall.
If it was hacked, that’s despicable; I hope that we can all agree on this in the most unqualified terms, and hope for prosecution of anyone involved. Such action poisons democracy.
And you are a Lieberman expert why? It is, in my opinion, as bad to feed at the Fox News trough and make such sanctimonious pronouncements as you have here.
You are too intelligent to not understand Lieberman’s wrangling on the Alito issue. He voted for Alito before he voted against him. Surely you are savvy enough to understand that politicians make calculated maneuvers so that completely gullible voters can later make such statements as “He voted against Alito.”
You are also too intelligent to keep pretending that Lieberman is only being held to account for his stance on Iraq, when any number of other Democrats who expressed similar support are not being tarred and feathered by the evul netroots. Jesus, are these NetRoots of your imagination anything like the roots in “Evil Dead”?
:dubious: If by that you are suggesting the NetRoots Dems are any less patriotic than anyone else in the American political field, that is a lie, and Pitworthy too.
According to MyDD, Tim Tagaris of the Lamont campaign has offered to send them help to put the site back up.
I can attest that the Lieberman site was briefly back up at 5:30am today when I briefly got online, and various pro-Joe messages have intermittently appeared there since. (I’ve seen one; Democratic Underground got a screen capture of another.) So they’ve got some sort of access to the server. Various claims have been bandied about that this ‘hack’ is a fake, a last-minute victim-card stunt, with assorted evidence proffered that I don’t know enough web-geek stuff to be able to evaluate.
If it’s a denial-of-service attack where they overload the server with robocalls to the web page, I’d think I’d have trouble getting through at all, but the page has never loaded slowly today, no matter what appears.
I’m a small “l” libertarian anyway, and very rarely vote for the bign “L” types. They’re pretty nutty.