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Nedrenalin, Joementum, and the specter of McGovern’s America (UPDATED)

The day of reckoning is here.  From The New York Daily News, “Clueless in Connecticut”:

Ned Lamont – who is looking to unseat Joe Lieberman in today’s Connecticut Democratic primary – is fond of saying that if voters elected him, they “wouldn’t be losing a senator” but would be “gaining a Democrat.” Set aside the comical assertion that Lieberman, who votes with his party 90% of the time, isn’t a real Democrat. Who is Ned Lamont, anyway, and what would Democrats gain by embracing him in the most watched Senate contest in the country?

Lamont postures as a businessman who was so outraged by the war in Iraq, and by Lieberman’s support of it, that he couldn’t keep himself from running. Really? Lamont gave money to Lieberman as late as February 2005, when the senator’s war position was clear.

But even if Lamont has grown into a committed anti-war activist, he has no clue what to do. He’s a complainer, not a leader. On June 22, Lamont’s campaign manager said he would have voted for a Senate plan calling for phased redeployment from Iraq – but wouldn’t necessarily vote for the John Kerry plan calling for a hard July 2007 deadline for withdrawing. The next day, the candidate himself said he would have voted for both resolutions. As recently as Sunday, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Lamont proxy Jim Dean admitted he didn’t know how his man would have voted. Remember, Iraq is the central issue in this race.

One thing is certain: Lamont spends most of his time channeling the anti-war, withdraw-now crowd. They would hail a Lamont victory as the dawn of a new day. And far beyond Connecticut, that would put the face of retreat on the party of FDR and Truman.

Never mind that pulling out could let Iraq turn into a terrorist training ground that would make pre-9/11 Afghanistan look like Disneyland. Never mind that it would scuttle the chances of building a stable government that could one day counter the forces of Muslim fanaticism. Never mind that it would hand Iran a victory and do grave damage to American credibility in the world.

We’ve got news for those two-thirds of Lamont’s supporters who, in polls, say they are voting against Lieberman – while only a third say they’re voting for Lamont. In America, when you vote against one candidate, you have to vote for another.

In this case, if they choose Lamont over Lieberman, Democrats in Connecticut will be losing a leader. And they’ll be gaining a man who is at best a cipher and at worst a shameless panderer on matters of central importance to American security.

Ironic, isn’t it, that after years of talking about Bush as a puppet to oil interests, neocon strategists, and Cheneyesque evil machinations, the netroots are hoping to install an empty suite—a “symbol,” really, of the base’s power to direct the Democratic party platform for 2008—into the Senate, in the hope that they can bring to power, finally, a “progressive” Executive in 2008?

Which, please God, will never ever happen so long as the US retains its identity as the US—and not some spacious satellite offshoot of Old Europe.

Still, it’s worth pointing out that Lamont is a perfect symbol for the entire progressivist moment—though in a way far different than the netroots themselves imagine him to be.  Which is to say a Lamont victory in the Democratic primary—far from symbolizing an American return to Carter-esque self-doubt and liberal guilt—will symbolize nothing more than the increased ability of the progressivist base to engage in narrative manipulation, orchestrated smear campaigns, and historical revisionism in order to install into power puppets forged in the fires of partisan hatred at sites like Firedoglake and DailyKos.

Which may work well when all that’s at stake is a Democratic primary.  But I don’t think the American people are ready to return to the days of sweaters, ennui, and self-flagellation.

Though I wouldn’t mind seeing a remake of “Welcome Back, Kotter” hit network TV.  But that’s really just an aesthetic thing.

More, from RCP; and Terry Hastings emails:

The intellectual core of Lamont’s campaign appears to center around this:

One of challenger Ned Lamont’s most potent weapons is a photo of Mr. Bush planting a kiss on Sen. Lieberman’s cheek after the 2005 State of the Union speech. A poll released Monday shows Mr. Lieberman making up ground, but Mr. Lamont is still ahead 51% to 45%.

The reality based community got in touch with its feelings (worn on sleeve), channeled that anger into a media show that casts current political events in emotional language, and thereby manages to avoid any substantive discourse of just what they propose to do. 

Looking backwards in time, Lieberman has offended the hard left on other occasions:

But others argue that Mr. Lieberman—the party’s 2000 vice-presidential nominee—put his own political career in jeopardy. In 1998, he was the party’s most outspoken critic of President Clinton during his impeachment trial. His questioning of affirmative-action programs and promotion of public-school vouchers angered his party’s minority and labor blocs. A short-lived run in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries undermined his stature.

Affirmative action and school vouchers are timely issues that beg for a substantive debate.  The left has so far managed to duck the substance and cast these issues in emotional language.  They have become the party of Howard Beale.  We know they are mad as hell, we know that they want us to vote for them, but then what?  The emotional language suggests everything will be just swell but, how exactly does this happen?  Will the madrassa’s quit preaching hatred of the west, jihad, and abandon Caliphate once we elect nuanced leaders that put the terrorists on an equal moral plane with civilized society?

I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

Howard Beale, eh?  How very…Carter-era

HANDLE IT, ROY!  HANDLE IT, HANDLE IT!

****

See also, LauraW posting at Ace’s.

29 Replies to “Nedrenalin, Joementum, and the specter of McGovern’s America (UPDATED)”

  1. ahem says:

    McGovern or McCarthy? You can make a good case for the latter. Their supporters–make that followers–are as rabid and blind as Bolsheviks.

    I wonder if any of this would be possible if the

    Democratic party weren’t already rotten to the core. Someone–forgot who–made the argument yesterday that the liberals, having achieved their goals of mid-century, were now bereft of a constructive guiding ideology. The one idea uniting them is an aversion to Bush. They’ll chop off their own heads to thwart him. But it’s not a montivating proposition.

    Hamsher and Kos are more like opportunistic diseases than alternatives.

  2. Karl says:

    But I don’t think the American people are ready to return to the days of sweaters, ennui, and self-flagellation.

    Not the sweaters, anyway.

    tw: Blue. Freaky.

  3. Jeff Goldstein says:

    I went with McGovern rather than McCarthy because he was the guy the Dems managed to put up for President.

  4. Major John says:

    Get clean for Gene?

    Anyway, I don’t know CT at all, so I cannot for the life of me figure out what is happening. 

    I will watch with great interest – thanks for posting this with the links to help me try and grok the madness.

  5. wishbone says:

    I am reminded of Churchill’s quip about Clement Atlee when reading about Lamont:  “An empty taxicab pulled to the fron of the House of Commons and Clement Atlee got out.”

    Note to the Kostards–Joe Lieberman is the kind of Democrat that could win a general election because he drives those of us on the right insane on domestic policy and has a spine in foreign policy–Just as an opposition party should.  But what we are witnessing is an ideological purge that hands the RNC the easiest to tape of TV spots (Think “There’s a bear in the woods” only with OBL and the Tehran nukedork in the starring role and the spinning faces of Russ Feingold, Ned Lamont and Jack Murtha as your anointed ones.)

    You folks have been down this road before.  George McGovern in his own just-plain-old-dumb way doesn’t realize that he would have STILL carry just one state if we had all known everything about Tricky Dick.  Jimmah, in his own annoying brand of dumbness, still thinks we all owe him an apology 1980.  I’ll spare you Fritz and Michael Friggin’ Dukakis because you have to recognize that they were just WRONG.

    I’d gloat, but it seems unseemly somehow.  I’ve said before that I’d like to find just one Scoop Jackson on the Democratic side of the aisle.  Well, I overlooked Lieberman and now it looks like I’ll be asking for a truly vanished species again.

  6. Steve the LLamabutcher says:

    Be careful what you wish for, Jeff—apparently there’s a movie remake of “Welcome Back Kotter,” but with Ice Cube in the role of Glorious Gabe.

    Now if they remade Fast Break, that would be something else altogether…

  7. AFKAF says:

    I told my one remaining liberal friend during the 2004 dem presidential primaries that Lieberman was the only candidate that scared me. 

    The destruction of the democrat party continues apace.

  8. marcus says:

    Here’s what Kos had to say yesterday:

    So to reiterate—all those people and organizations above worked their asses off for the Lamont campaign. I sat on my ass and wrote about it. I’m about as relevant to winning the Connecticut primary as the 101st Fighting Keyboardists are in winning the war in Iraq.

    From Atrios:

    Well, it’ll be a miracle if Lamont pulls it off on Tuesday.

    A “miracle”?  When did Duncan get religion?

    After 6 months of “Nedrinaline!” and the YearlyKos worshipfest, I wonder why they are suddenly being so coy about it all?

  9. Benedick says:

    There’s an interesting op-ed by former Clinton special counsel Lanny Davis in today’s WSJ (online version, anyway).  His entire thesis is that, while he used to think bigotry and hate were exclusively the province of the Right, his experience campaigning for Lieberman has convinced him otherwise.

    Here’s a self described “anti-war liberal” who has come under attack for the sin of supporting a moderate Democrat.  This Connecticut Senate primary really seems to be an early skirmish in the war for control of that party.

  10. Pablo says:

    Lanny Davis chimes in:

    Liberal McCarthyism

    Bigotry and hate aren’t just for right-wingers anymore. [Heh.-Ed.]

    WASHINGTON–My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.

    This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing–in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against “communists and their fellow travelers.” The word “McCarthyism” became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right’s fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a “communist” or “socialist” who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field.

    I came to believe that we liberals couldn’t possibly be so intolerant and hateful, because our ideology was famous for ACLU-type commitments to free speech, dissent and, especially, tolerance for those who differed with us. And in recent years–with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage–I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right.

    Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony. Here are just a few examples (there are many, many more anyone with a search engine can find) of the type of thing the liberal blog sites have been posting about Joe Lieberman…

    Apparently, Lanny didn’t make it by firedoglake. Pity, that. Might have made a Republican out of him.

  11. ahem says:

    pablo: Give it time. If Lamont wins, I think you’re going to see a respectable amount of defection–at least, until the Dems can right themselves.

  12. Basically, what Lanny’s saying is that he never realized how much hatred and bile the left put out until it was directed at him.

  13. Mark Poling says:

    marcus, the obvious reason the nutroots’ leading lights are being coy is because they think they’re going to actually win this one. 

    Spin knows no ideology, apparently. 

    Personally, I’m guessing the firedoglakers don’t understand how much they piss people off, and I’m not going to be surprised at all if turnout is way up, with a lot of it coming out to support their not-a-kossack.  (It doesn’t hurt that a lot of people actually like Joe.  The same can’t be said for Ned.)

    We’ll see.  But as an extra “do we need this kind of shit?” incentive, apparently Joe’s campaign site was hacked and disabled this morning.  Hope that makes all the radio and television news today…..

    TW: “club”—what is the only tool in the progressive toolbox.  Alternate answer: what you have to be part of if you don’t want your site hacked.

  14. David R. Block says:

    My actions regarding Democrats had been to walk away.

    Here lately, it’s been to run away.

  15. ahem says:

    Crawford: You got that right. A Republican is a Democrat that got mugged by a Progressive.

  16. Blind Howlin' Moonbat says:

    But as an extra “do we need this kind of shit?” incentive, apparently Joe’s campaign site was hacked and disabled this morning.  Hope that makes all the radio and television news today…..

    Such a typical rethug trick.  Just goes to show how in bed with the rethuglikkkans Joe really is.

  17. We’ll see.  But as an extra “do we need this kind of shit?” incentive, apparently Joe’s campaign site was hacked and disabled this morning.  Hope that makes all the radio and television news today…..

    Kinda puts the DoS attacks against Jeff into a different light, doesn’t it?

  18. Karl says:

    Kos was being coy because—as a pro consultant—he knows that taking too much credit might cause the albatross of the Kos Kids to be hung around Lamont’s neck if he wins.

    As for Republicans being Democrats that got mugged by Progressives, it’s worth noting that ahem is making a funny play on Norman Podhoretz’s definition of a neo-con from the the 70s.  It’s worth noting because the CT primary is just the latest milestone along the long road of the Left pushing people out of the Democratic Party.  The reason the netroots hate Lieberman is the same as why they hate neo-cons.  It’s not that they are seen as conservatives; Lieberman’s overall record shows the opposite.  Rather, it’s that they are seen as “neo.” They are seen as heretics.  It’s why they hate Charles Johnson, Glenn Reynolds and—in his own way—Jeff Goldstein.

    tw:  Same as it ever was.

  19. As a conservative who generally supports Republicans, I can’t really see a significant downside to this.

    Let’s consider the potential scenarios, starting with the best one:

    1.  Lieberman loses by a huge margin.  This would send the Moonbats to Seventh Heaven (or Valhalla or Nirvana or Vor-ta-vor, etc.).  They would grossly overestimate their influence and power, Howard Dean would appoint Hamsher as chief Democrat strategist, and most of the Party would follow the Nutroots over the Anti-War cliff.

    Net result:  Republicans pick up 10-15 seats in House, 3-5 in Senate.

    2.  Lieberman loses, but only by a slim margin.  Such a loss would give him the idea that he has enough Joe-mentum to win in November.  In a three-way race with the Democrat vote divided, the Republican has a chance to win the seat.

    3.  Lieberman wins by a slim margin.  This would be the best for entertainment value, as the Nutroots would explode with conspiracy theories of an election stolen by the Establishment (for an example, see what Lopez-Obrador is doing in Mexico).

    4.  Lieberman wins by a huge margin.  Other than the direct repudiation of the anti-war loonies, the only advantage to this it gives me the opportunity for a Nelson Muntz “Ha-ha”.

  20. Matt, Esq. says:

    I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, with all the complete crap the dems have put down in print and other forms of media, the repubs should simply run 30 sec ad spots highlighing all of the looney crap they say.

    BTW, Namont’s not sure what a “blog” is. ..

  21. ahem says:

    Captain: If Lieberman wins huge, I’ll be laughing for the next two weeks. If his win is slim, it’ll be fun to watch the nuts all signing themselves up to fight for Hezbollah. And if Lamont wins in a squeaker, it still ain’t over. The entertainment possibilities on this one are endless.

  22. Meg Q says:

    4.  Lieberman wins by a huge margin.  Other than the direct repudiation of the anti-war loonies, the only advantage to this it gives me the opportunity for a Nelson Muntz “Ha-ha”.

    That would be a satisfying one, though, wouldn’t it?

    Connecticut. I dunno. Can we really read too much into anything that goes on there? Home of insurance and tobaccy. The state that brought us (over and over and OVER again) Lowell Weicker. Go figger.

    After 6 months of “Nedrinaline!” and the YearlyKos worshipfest, I wonder why they are suddenly being so coy about it all?

    TW: yes. Need I say more?

    Yesssssssss.

  23. Big Paul says:

    “Fast Break”?  Come on, I like Gabe Kaplan as much as the next guy, but I think we all know that the 70’s basketball movie that’s begging to be remade is “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh”.

    Let’s get real, people.

    TW: And we need to take action to make this remake happen.

  24. Major John says:

    CPT Holly – I don’t think any Republican could win in CT right now.  Sorry, you’ll have to count that one out.

    I fully intend on having a margarita and watching the returns on the intrawebs/inter-tubes (I have this new Ted Stevens internut provider…) tonight.

    Cheers!

  25. Major John says:

    Big Paul – I’m with you pal.  What can we do?

  26. Looks like it’s option #2 (with the Major’s objections are duly noted).  Not a bad choice; I enjoy watching the Democrat Party implode.

    Lieberman now owes the Democrats nothing, and the nutroots are going to be fit to be tied when he gives them the finger and runs as an independent.  But what are they going to do?  He’s already been voted out, and he’s probably way too old to have another run for the White House anyway.

    Incidentally, if you thought the Moonbat left was anti-Semitic now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  With Israel kicking the tar out of Hizbullah while the UN looks on impotently, and with that uppity Jew Joe about to spoil Ned’s chances, they’re frothing with rage.  In the coming months the Kos Kidz are going to produce some Jooo-bashing worthy of Goebbels hisself.

  27. dubiousraves says:

    Will the madrassa’s quit preaching hatred of the west, jihad, and abandon Caliphate once we elect nuanced leaders that put the terrorists on an equal moral plane with civilized society?

    I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

    — No, of course you wouldn’t. Chickenhawks don’t do that.

  28. Copperhead says:

    Step 1: Democrats.

    Step 2:

    Step 3: Utopia!

    If only we could work out the -details- for step two….

  29. McGehee says:

    Chickenhawk

    Fuck off.

Comments are closed.