Here’s how I see it. As odious as he is, Lieberman is going to caucus with the Dems - so if either he or Lamont wins, the Dems still have that leadership vote. If a Dem is out campaigning for someone, and the choice is Ned Lamont or Jim Webb/Claire McCaskill/Jon Tester, I think it would be idiocy to waste time with Lamont. I don’t see it as any sort of desire to disassociate from the fringe, but plain simple politics - and I think I’m removed enough from the situation to make that assesment rather than someone inside the camp who thinks everyone’s “out to get us” (For instance, nobody can tell me Jerry Jones doesn’t pay off the refs during Redskins-Cowboys games and that the announcers don’t always have a pro-Dallas bias. See what I mean?).

Frankly, their positions at the head of the table certainly deserve some credit, but I’d give a lot more credit to voter disgust with Bush and the GOP. With the right campaign, I think a lot of Repubs would have gone down in flames to a pile of plastic novelty vomit.

As for Sirota and Stoller, they may have a penchant for pissing on the Clintons (Bill for not holding sufficiently to his economic populist roots and Hillary for her poll tested positions on everything), but they were pretty close to the campaign and do site very specific examples of how Lamont got the shaft from the Dems in many ways. I think Sirota argues a very persuasive case, and simply being close to the campaign doesn’t render him blind to it’s failings, nor does it invalidate his many points about the various factors outside the Lamont campaign that contributed to his loss. There’s plenty of blame to spread around, just as there is plenty of credit where the other national races are concerned. I was never under the impression that the factions in the Dmeocratic Party were working against Lamont so much as they were not working for him out of fear of appearing to weak on security or to in line with the “fringe.” I definitely think a similar perception has worked to undermine Dean, though Dean himself has hurt his cause from time to time thanks to a bit of an inarticulate streak.

And as for Dugger and Frank, Lieberman is a self-interested, high profile, back stabbing, liar. He gets special attention because he so routinely offers himself up to conservative media as the sane voice struggling to save the soul of the Democratic Party. He never hesitates to heap scorn on anyone, whether they be citizen or politician, if they have the audacity to stand against the war or his positions on it. You can do a semantic dance about his honesty all you want, arguing, say, that when Lieberman said he was in favor of ending the war as quickly as possible, he meant “but responsibly.” Of course, that means putting words in his mouth, a tactic those on morally shaky ground, or children under 10, often employ in an attempt to leave themselves wiggle room when caught out in a lie. Tack on the Katrina 180 and Lieberman seems to be having a hard time keeping his campaign promises, well, to the voters, anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc_RxJSLMr8

I’m not saying Schumer and Emanuel are God, but they were in charge of the DCCC and DSCC at a time when the party captured the House and Senate. It’s clear they did something right. Stoller and Sirota like to posit big conspiracy theories that inevitably lead back to Hillary and Bill Clinton sabotaging the Lamont campaign, when in fact the result of Ned Lamont’s campaign lays with Ned Lamont. I would have voted for Lamont, but that doesn’t excuse that his campaign was badly run (the same way I blame John Kerry for the Kerry campaign).

I think I speak for many when I say the reason we don’t like Lieberman isn’t because he’s conservative - there are a lot more conservative Democrats than him who don’t get any of the grief, but it’s because he loves to stab the Democratic party in the back and gives cover to Bush to continue his war.

http://angryflower.com/pathof.gif

Let’s just say that Matt Stoller and David Sirota are not the most objective or believable people on the subject of Ned Lamont. Schumer and Emanuel worked on a historic campaign that delivered the House and Senate to the Democratic party, the idea that there was a plot to hobble Ned Lamont is the product of overactive imaginations compensating for Ned’s lack of campaign acumen.

Any substantiation for any of this? Why are Stoller and Sirota unreliable but you aren’t? Because they actually site examples of how the Dems aggressively worked to split the difference with Lamont and Lieberman to cover their asses should either prove victorious? Was it Rahm’s initial desire to push the Iraq war out of the spotlight that won all those seats? Maybe his support, both vocally and monetarily for a batch of losers?

Won the House? Try practically lost it. I’m certainly open to contrary opinions, but attacking the messenger(s) and dismissing a rather large pool of evidence of Rahm’s tunnel vision as a “plot” (oh those conspiracy minded liberals, why can’t they accept that Gore lost…oops, wrong plot) seems like a page torn from the other team’s playbook. Sure Lamont made mistakes, some serious. I’d call his failure to press his primary victory and push Lieberman out of the race (which probably wouldn’t have worked, considering what happened anyway) a biggie. That opened the door for Lieberman to grab Lamont’s anti-war narrative and dishonestly re-frame his campaign. Lamont ran a decent race against an opponent that had a lot of institutional advantages. For a first time candidate going against a deeply entrenched beltway incumbent, he did an incredible job (being wealthy didn’t hurt, either). Christ, the fact that we even remember his name as anything other than a blip on the 2006 radar is proof of that.

Start your rueing!

Lieberman’s campaign lied about having been hacked by Lamont’s nefarious blogofascist drones, and about his not being W’s butt boy. If The Last Honest Man can’t even demand documents from W relating to Katrina, what can we expect him to oppose the Administration on?

He said during the campaign they need to investigate Bush’s handling of Katrina. He’s now saying he doesn’t think they need to investigate Bush’s handling of Katrina. It helps if you read the sentences from left to right; perhaps that’s what stumped you the first time around and caused such confusion for you.

you brand yourself a hater.

Apparently we can’t prove you’re not fourteen years old. Although, that would explain quite a lot.

But yes, the fact that we cannot prove that Lieberman knew he was going to do this when he was saying the exact opposite doesnt mean he’s a liar. Much the same way, while campaigning, he was talking about how great Iraq was going and how we would probably be reducing surplus troops soon, that his disconnect with reality doesnt mean that he was “lying” per se, just that he had no intention to think critically about an opinion that, in the face of almost all the evidence, is manifestly false.

You really love to go after people who use the L word though dont you Dug? Alright, heres a thing. I, Rex Mundane, am actually a Potato. A starchy tuberous vegetable. Seriously. And not like a human sized one either, I’m just a regular Potato. And, heres the key, I’m not lying about this. Because if I actually believe that I’m a Potato, even though it is a belief that is diametrically at odds with every piece of evidence available, and one that begs questions about how I’m able to think and type and talk and laugh and love, and I keep espousing this belief as though it were the truth and attack you for daring to contradict me by providing sensible proof that I’m not a Potato as I claim, I’m not, in fact, lying. I’m not lying at all. I’m a Potato, Dugger, and Not lying at all when I say it, and you would have to be a rabid hater to suggest otherwise, calmly and rationally though you may.

Oh wait, heres a better one:

This sentence is false.

Have I just lied?

Irrelevant.

What’s at issue here is what Mr. Lieberman promised voters he would do about the Katrina response before the election and how he has changed his tune after the election.

Unless you’re saying it’s OK for a politician to go back on his promises as long as you like the result. That’s different.

And Rex, Liberman IMO is trying to be bipartisan. You and I would completely disagree about how much, if any, Bush screwed up re Katrina. Going after him now serves no purpose other than to placate the haters.

So they can kill more earmark/ethics reform bills like they did yesterday?

The people who actually read the article would understand the issue here is that Lieberman lied. He’s backing out on a claim he made during the campaign that he clearly made only to convince a percentage of Democrats that he’s still worth voting for.