Yes, it's all about elections. To the victor goes the spoils, and the spoils includes the tools to weaken your opponents for years to come, not to mention controlling the national agenda, controlling spending, and passing and enforcing laws. We are working round-the-clock and contributing regularly to win elections. There is more to elections, and more to this election, than that. Take the jump. (Some pictures, one of them moderately graphic.)
I, for one, am excited by the prospect of routing the Bushist enablers in Congress this fall, ending the years-long obstruction of investigation into the
criminal acts of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, and other members of their administration, bringing the truth of our governments' actions and cover-ups to the American people, prosecuting every criminal to the fullest extent of the law, and enacting legislative reform in order to insure that such rampant criminality never gets up on its hind legs again. That is why I have volunteered time and sent money to
Progressive and NetRoots Candidates.
Electorally, each spit-string that connects any candidate to the lying criminal George W. Bush is now seen as damaging as a stain on an old blue dress. Bush's political DNA is now "the kiss of political death". This is as it should be, for his legacy is one of death on a massive scale:
death by air
,
which his administration in prideful ignorance failed to prevent,
death by sea
,
which his administration callously ignored, both before and after,
death by torture
,
which his administration feverishly promoted and attempted to legalize,
and death by aggressive war
,
for which his administration repeatedly lied to the US and world.
That's a lot of death for one man -- even for a group of men, and particularly for men and women elected or appointed to work for the betterment of America. (That that is not their goal is the topic of a diary on another day.) That the man-child who pushed out his lower lip, swelled his undecorated chest, and said "I want to be a war president" is now understood to be the kiss of political death is quite fitting.
But Bush's crimes (and the crimes of the criminals in his cabinet), are not political crimes, and suffering a political death for real crimes -- real crimes in which people lost real lives -- is neither fitting nor just. In this case, the political solution does not go far enough.
In an electoral sense, Sen. Reid and Sen Schumer are right to underscore that the people of Connecticut saw this as referendum on Bush and that Bush lost.
Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else.
Let's not lose sight of the principle here as we chase after electoral victory: there are two things wrong with the senators' thinking. First, it is long past time for Democrats to speak clearly about politics (speaking about reality immediately puts Republicans on the defensive). Let's have our Democrats lift us all out of the air-conditioned bubble in which the Republicans continually propagate their hoaxes. Let us no longer talk about "perceptions". Let us bang our spades in the sometimes unforgiving earth of reality and talk about facts. The fact -- amply demonstrated -- is that three-term Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman was too close to George W. Bush. He was close enough to swap DNA. In a more-than-Biblical sense, Joe went across the aisle to George, and they lied together. That's not a "perception" -- that's a fact.
Second, the Connecticut Senatorial Democratic Party primary election was not a referendum on President Bush. Everyone knows Mr. Bush can't run again. The primary which Lamont won was a referendum on BUSHISM -- that virulent, ugly, death-dealing, take-no-prisoners (ever wonder what that means? ever wonder why Bush's henchmen tried to put the legal label "combatants" on them?) branch of Conservatism that acts on the belief that might makes right, that their ends justify any means, and that torture, murder, and death are just part of "doing business". Bushism, seen in the plain light of day and not through the unearthly whiteness of corporatism, is not just illegal -- it is immoral. Bushism is an immoral political movement that should never have grown root in the American soil.
That's the principle here -- and that is what I would like to hear all Democratic leaders say every day between now and November 7th.: Bushism is wrong.
Lieberman ran a bad campaign (exemplified in so many ways by paying a crony of a crony $1,500 for $15/month worth of web service), and he let Bush play sucky-face with him in public, but what was rejected here -- the "Hooray for Lamont" heard 'round the country, and most loudly in DC corner offices -- was Bushism. The referendum was on BUSHISM in an extra-electoral sense. BUSHISM is immoral. BUSHISM is wrong. The people of Connecticut have led the way in electing to eradicate it (like a poisoning vine) from amongst our majestic purple fields.