I admit it. I read Slate. I enjoy the pseudo-intellectual latte-swilling slightly left of center viewpoint. So I clicked on it this morning to see that Jacob Weisberg (Slate's current editor) has struck
again. A few months ago I saw him extolling the virtues of John McCain and I rolled my eyes, but he's since been fairly quiet. Then this piece of garbage...
Let me be clear. Although going back at least through the time of the original "Joementum" I have been critical of Lieberman and have on more than one occasion said "why can't somebody run against him in the primary?" my heart was not in the Lieberman/Lamont race. I did not follow it particularly, and I did not really much care about the outcome. Lamont seemed to be an earnest enough fellow, but hardly compelling, and I wondered if, as a political novice, he'd be able to keep his head above water when dealing with the sharks of both parties. As late as a few weeks ago, I did not think he could win.
So why is Weisberg enraging me so much now? The thesis of his piece is that Lamont's win spells doom for the Democratic party. And his reasoning is so assinine that it could only be concocted by someone at the--The New Republic!
As I read it, it is this: Lamont's win is a win for the "anti-war" forces, and "anti-war" is a code word for naive Vietnam-era isolationists who lost the Democratic party elections from the Vietnam war on. With Lamont's win, these isolationists are taking over the party, and will thus doom the Democrats to electoral defeat forever. And he manages to throw in a barb at Howard Dean, representing "elitism and anti-war purity."
Here's the thing--if there really were some sort of Democratic cabal that was as naive and isolationist as Weisberg claims (unwilling to be "tough on terror", appeasing the terrorists, whatever), I wouldn't be happy about them either. While there may be some people of that sort around, my sense is that they certainly aren't dominant in the party, and they don't even make up a majority of the folks found here. Howard Dean is most certainly not one of those people. The people who are "behind" Ned Lamont's victory want out of Iraq, to be sure, but because it's a bad idea. Even Weisberg grudgingly admits it was a bad idea. Thinking something that is a bad idea is not the same as being a naive isolationist.
Why does this matter, though? After all, who will actually read his piece? I think it matters because he is likely not alone. There will be people, supposedly "Democrats" who fret and stew and live in the past. And can we just dismiss them? Maybe, someday--but for now there is a fair amount of this sort of whining in the "establishment". On the other hand, they gravitate to power and might be duly impressed by victory. I'll be curious to see what Weisberg and his ilk would have to say if the Dems start winning.