If you’re a registered Democrat in Connecticut and you’re reading this, remember:
Annoy the blogosphere, vote for Joe! :)
The polls open at 6:00 AM EDT and close at 8:00 PM EDT (5pm MST). Get out there and vote!
Also, if you’re a registered Democrat in the 4th congressional district of Georgia… Vote for Hank Johnson! Give McKinney the boot!
P.S. Back to Lieberman v. Lamont… after the jump, excerpts from Lieberman’s big speech on Sunday, defending himself head-on against the false charges that are being leveled by Lamont and his blogospheric allies:
Let’s start with the biggest lie being told about me by the other side – the false charge that I am George Bush’s best friend and enabler. As Max’s friends in Georgia would say, that is a load of hogwash. …
I believe that [Bush’s] agenda was wrong for our country and our future. And that’s the truth.
In the Senate, I have acted on that conviction time and time again, standing against the President on most every big domestic issue. I did so because I believe that his policies were damaging to our state and country. And that’s the truth.
[Lieberman then listed a bunch of issues where he has opposed Bush, including tax cuts, stem cells, gay marriage, bankruptcy, affirmative action, the environment and Social Security.]
Now with all that said, I will never hesitate to work across party lines when it helps me get something done for the people of Connecticut. … I don’t hate Republicans. I know that some times the best way to get things done in the Senate for my constituents is through bipartisan cooperation.
That doesn’t make me a bad Democrat. It makes me a better Senator.
Indeed it does. Also:
On Iraq, as you know, I supported the resolution giving the President the authority to use force to take out Saddam Hussein, as did most Senate Democrats. I still believe that was right.
What I don’t think is right, as I have said over and over again, are many of the Bush Administration’s decisions regarding the execution of the war. The fact is, I have openly and clearly disagreed with and criticized the President for, among other things:
* not winning the support of our allies in the run-up to the war;
* not having a plan to win the peace;
* not putting enough troops on the ground;
* putting an American in charge of the Iraqi oil supply.
And I said that if I were President, I would ask Secretary Rumsfeld to resign. I first said that in October 2003. …
But if we simply give up and pull out now, like my opponent wants to do, then it would be a disaster to Iraq and to us. We would run a high risk of allowing Iraq to become like Afghanistan when the Taliban were in charge, and Al Qaeda had safe haven from which to strike us.
It’s precisely because of the horrible cost of the war, and the impact that has had on public support for our mission in Iraq, that I have tried to present an honest, non-partisan, balanced picture of what’s happening on the ground there. I have been encouraged by the formation of the Iraqi unity government. But like a lot of Americans, both supporters and of opponents of the war, I am increasingly troubled by the sectarian violence in Iraq.
Last but definitely not least:
I not only respect your right to disagree or question the President, I value it. I was part of the anti-war movement in the late 1960s, so I don’t need to be lectured by Ned Lamont about the place of dissent in our democracy.
My opponent wants you to believe otherwise, to cement his distortion campaign against me. That’s why they keep repeating and misrepresenting a single comment I made in one speech, in which I said we undermine the President’s credibility at our peril.
I know that statement has been widely misconstrued, so let me address it head on. I did not suggest that the President or anyone else — including me — should be immune from criticism. The best proof of that is I myself have challenged the President’s policies on many occasions.
The point I was trying to make was about how we disagree. My concern was, and remains, that if opponents or supporters of the war go beyond disagreeing to exploiting the war for partisan political purposes, much like Republicans did to Max Cleland on homeland security, we could lose more than an election. We could put our mission in Iraq, the lives of thousands of American soldiers carrying it out, and our national security at risk. That is what I care about.
The continual invocation, devoid of all context, of Lieberman’s comment about “undermining presidential credibility” has been one of the most irritating things about this campaign. Here’s what I wrote about it back in December:
Lieberman isn’t saying “agree with the president or you’re a traitor.” He’s saying that, to the extent Democrats and Republicans actually already do agree about most of the relevant issues regarding what we need to do next in Iraq (which he argues is actually quite a substantial extent), it’s wrong for them to play up the differences and ignore the agreements for the sake of purely political advantage. Read the whole speech and this is quite clear. In other words, he’s NOT attacking principled dissent over the war; he’s attacking the unprincipled act of playing politics with the war. Those are two very different things.
And he’s right — Bush is going to be around for three more years, so Democrats are doing themselves no favors if they pretend they don’t have to keep dealing with him; and we do undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril, which is why, on matters of foreign policy and national defense, we should not attack the president’s credibility lightly — i.e., not if it’s for political gain, only if it’s truly a matter of principle. (So in other words, saying “Bush Lied” is deeply irresponsible unless, you know, Bush actually lied.)
Admittedly, Lieberman probably could have chosen his words better in that particular paragraph, and thrown in an extra caveat or two. But the criticism of him is way overboard when you look in its entirety at what he actually said, which is, as always with Senator Joe, quite reasonable.
As Martin Peretz says, a victory for Lamont would be a victory for the forces of extremism in the Democratic Party — which, in the long-term, would be a very bad thing for the Democratic Party. If you care about the future of the party, and by extension the nation (since a viable opposition party is essential to the health of the nation), you should be rooting for Lieberman today, because a Democratic Party that doesn’t have room for Joe in its “big tent” is a Democratic Party that is doomed to another long run on the outside looking in.
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Categories: Joe Lieberman, Election 2006
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August 8th, 2006 at 3:01:19 am
Isn’t it kind of a contradiction– not hypocrisy– to use the blogosphere itself in order to encourage people to “annoy the blogosphere, vote for Joe”??
August 8th, 2006 at 3:25:45 am
Heh. Yes. That’s the beauty of it.
August 8th, 2006 at 5:30:24 am
Does the blogosphere vote? I thought Connecticut residents vote. Maybe you should say, “Annoy Connecticut Democrats.”
August 8th, 2006 at 5:36:34 am
I actually enjoyed the exchange on Meet the Press between each of their supporters. I thought both of them did a great job provided quality candidate information.
August 8th, 2006 at 5:56:49 am
Angrier, no, the blogosphere can’t vote (except for Connecticut bloggers of course), but certainly they (well, the lefty blogosphere anyway) will be collectively annoyed if Lieberman wins. Just like I, who can’t vote, will be annoyed if Lamont wins. Why is this hard to understand?
In case you don’t get the reference, back in ‘88 (or was it ‘92?) a favorite chant among some supporters of Bush the Elder was “Annoy the media, vote for Bush!” In 2004, I personally heard this re-incarnated in the form of “Annoy the media, vote for Dean!” So I’m just taking it to its next logical conclusion. :)
August 8th, 2006 at 5:58:06 am
P.S. Also, my “annoy the blogosphere” remark was directed at Connecticut Democrats. It wouldn’t make very much sense for me to say: “Attention Connecticut Democrats! Annoy Connecticut Democrats!”
August 8th, 2006 at 6:52:25 am
Look, I’ve had a problem with Joe for more than the last 6 years. I always thought he was too conservative for Connecticut. Period. I was willing to vote for him for Senate in ‘00 because he was better than the perennial Republican Sacrificial Lamb and for Veep because he was running as the #2 guy under Gore.
Personally, Jew or not, I hope Lieberman loses by a decent enough margin today.
August 8th, 2006 at 7:41:31 am
what exactly does that mean to annoy the blogosphere? Annoy it by NOT voting for Lieberman would make more sense. Sounnds like an oxymoron.
August 8th, 2006 at 8:54:44 am
Jeebus!
How about this: annoy the blogosphere with needless circuitus overexamination of a light-hearted joke…
August 8th, 2006 at 9:05:03 am
I have a better one. Annoy Lieberman, vote for Lamont. Ha!
August 8th, 2006 at 9:35:58 am
I’d be happy just annoying Kos.
August 8th, 2006 at 9:55:11 am
Apparently pro-Lamont supporters hacked Lieberman’s site… http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001292.php
August 8th, 2006 at 9:56:41 am
Is Lamont a French name?
August 8th, 2006 at 10:10:46 am
Better dead than Ned.
August 8th, 2006 at 10:35:21 am
Shut it, Paul B. You’ll ruin everything!
August 8th, 2006 at 10:38:35 am
Is this part of the big speech:
“”As someone who voted for the war, I feel a heavy responsibility to try to end it as quickly and successfully as possible,” he said. “… I want to get our troops home as fast as anyone, probably more than most, and as I have repeatedly said, I am against an open-ended commitment.”
Ah, the calculation!
From ‘Analysis: Gop on defensive’
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/08/07/ap2932792.html
August 8th, 2006 at 11:19:26 am
I love that wacky Ken Mehlmann. “Waving the white flag will embolden our enemy.”
Yeah. Like blowing the shit out of Baghdad three years ago and occupying the country certainly hasn’t done anything to embolden our enemies. What a dumb fuck.
August 8th, 2006 at 11:57:36 am
Angrier -
So Ken is a dumb fuck because he points out that if you retreat from Iraq, you hand our enemies a victory?
Or is he a dumb fuck because he didn’t immediately rail into the kind of disaster the current policy is?
Or is he a dumb fuck because he’s a republican you don’t like?
Or is he a dumb fuck because you’re partial to the color white? Or do you have shares in Colorox?
Or is he a dumb fuck because you didn’t prove he is wrong and simply called him an dumb fuck because he didn’t bring up the issue you wanted him to?
Just curious. Wanted to get some clarification so I don’t leap to conclusions.
August 8th, 2006 at 3:49:00 pm
Lojo,
Too many questions, but no substance. You know exactly what the angry man meant. The statement itself, Ken, is asinine in the context of reality.
August 8th, 2006 at 5:05:03 pm
Lojo-
How do you hand our enemies more of a victory than they have now? The entire Muslim world hates the U.S. Iran is rushing to get nukes. N. Korea has them. Hezbollah is embarrassing the IDF on a global stage. This is a fuck-fest. At least if the U.S. leaves Iraq there is a chance that the Syrians and the Iranians will kill each other over Iraq instead of our guys.
August 8th, 2006 at 7:48:31 pm
uscroger -
How exactly is it asinine to point out that leaving Iraq now will embolden our enemies? Because it will. Now whether that is sufficient enough argument to say no to that course is a whole other matter. But angry is calling him a dumb fuck without even calling him wrong or showing that he’s wrong.
Max -
So you plan is to leave Iraq and hope Syria and Iraq kill each other? I’m convinced, let’s enact that brillant piece of global planning. If your question is how it can get worse, here’s an idea:
“Likely, you would see a tremendous increase in sectarian violence that would make the current status quo seem quaint. Depending on distance of the redeployment (the further the more likely), Iran would either roll into Iraq outright, but would more likely setup hizbollah or some other militant arm to make Iraq an outpost.
Also, they would be able to directly transport arms to Hezbollah due to rolling from Iran straight through to Syria and Lebanon, without having to go around Iraq.
With terrorist resources no longer be spent in Iraq, expect to see those resources being used abroad. Not necessarily the states, but definitely Europe and other Middle Eastern sites (i.e. Israel).
Any deterrent value our military currently has would go right down the crapper and Iraq would turn into a new hotbed of anti-american activity as strong as when Saddam was in place.”
If your whole position is, “Let’s leave because it can’t get any worse,” then I hope you don’t plan to convince alot of people with that.