Joe Lieberman and his apologists have two potent weapons in their battle against Lamont. The first is incumbency. Although sometimes, um, it's
not so great:
We'll start with an introduction of Senator Lieberman by a veteran at the Memorial Day parade in Waterbury earlier today:
Jospeph Lieberman has served, he's in his 18th year. And, ummm, as the expression goes, `maybe we'll keep him there until he gets it right.'
I wouldn't call that intro "warm" or "glowing" or even "positive". But Jomentum must take what he can get, I suppose.
His other big advantage is the perception (and it's just that) that this is somehow a battle against Lieberman's "moderation". Apparently, walking a parade route with a Republican congresswoman is Joe's way to show he's a "moderate". As is his support for the Iraq War, his support for George Bush's judges (as part of the "gang of 14"), his opposition to emergency contraception for rape victims in hospitals, his tedious moralizing about Clinton's infidelities, etc.
David Sirota addresses this fiction:
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says we can see that in today's Washington "A Democrat is considered centrist to the extent that he does what Mr. Lieberman does: lends his support to Republican talking points, even if those talking points don't correspond at all to what most of the public wants or believes." Krugman is right - but as I document in my new book Hostile Takeover it goes even deeper. Washington's definition of "centrism" is not just about promoting those who capitulate to Republicans, but more broadly, those who genuflect to the Establishment and support the hostile takeover of our government.
No matter how far out on the fringe of public opinion you may be, you are billed as a "centrist", a "moderate" or "in the mainstream" in our nation's capital if you serve as a mouthpiece for powerful interests who bathe politicians in cash, lend your support to these interests' pet causes, perpetuate their dishonest agendas, and keep telling the public that the Establishment's goals are the public's goals - even when polls clearly shows they are not. This paradigm is everywhere. Lieberman keeps getting fawned over as a "moderate"; out-of-touch, war-mongering Beltway pundits are being lauded as supposedly tough "moderates"; and corporate-funded think tanks pushing extremist economic and foreign policy agendas are applauded by pundits as "moderate" saviors. The propaganda is ubiquitous - and it goes the other way, too.
That's right, in Washington, you are labeled "liberal," "extremist" or "outside the mainstream" if you actually challenge power, debunk dishonest agendas with facts, and remind the public that the Beltway is deliberately ignoring what the vast majority of Americans want from their government. Moveon still gets slandered as supposedly out of the mainstream for its opposition to the war - even though polls show the public is just as vehemently opposed to the war. The netroots is constantly harangued by Beltway pundits as ultra "liberal" - even though the positions it supports in trying to get the Democratic Party to actually stand up for ordinary citizens is right in the center of public opinion data.
Washington, in short, deliberately tries to marginalize forces of change by slandering those forces as outside the "center" That propaganda system, not surprisingly, selects for people who refuse to challenge power. This explains why we have so many unspectacular, mealy-mouthed, power-fearing politicians on both sides of the aisle in Congress (and also why there are more outspoken voices in statehouses where this propaganda system is less pronounced). But it also explains why there is so much anger at Washington brewing throughout the country. After so many years of Washington lying to people about what the "center" supposedly is, Americans are waking up.
Everytime I hear someone blather about "moderate" or "centrist" I harken back to this:
John Podesta, president of the progressive Center for American Progress (CAP), faced pointed questions from lawmakers at last Thursday's New Democrat Coalition (NDC) meeting about an inflammatory e-mail his organization sent to liberal activists and bloggers.
In a March 9 e-mail, David Sirota, a fellow at CAP, accused 16 pro-business Democrats of supporting bankruptcy-reform legislation because they received political contributions from the commercial banks and credit-card companies that stand to benefit if the legislation becomes law.
The e-mail coursed through the blogosphere and generated angry phone calls from liberal activists to the offices of the 16 centrist Democrats. Sirota, a former minority spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, criticized 16 of the 20 Democrats who wrote Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) March 7 urging him to bring bankruptcy reform to the House floor [...]
According to an aide familiar with the meeting, one lawmaker said, "There is a school of thought out there that we should `shoot all the centrists,' so John, are you of that school or do you want us to just go ahead and shoot ourselves now?"
This incident rests in my mind as the consumate example of the fiction of the "centrist" label. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and I remember exactly what we were asking of those members of the NDC:
"What, exactly, is 'centrist' about the bankruptcy bill?"
Was it supported by a majority of the American people, putting it squarely in the political mainstream? Nope. It was a corporate giveaway to the credit card industry. Nothing more. Nothing less. People like me and Sirota and countless others pleaded to the NDC to explain why they called the bill "centrist", we promised to lay off once they exlained themselves, but we never got a single answer. Not one.
Because they couldn't. There is nothing "centrist" about the bankruptcy bill, just as much of what passes as "centrism" in DC is nothing of the sort.
Sirota is dead on.
So is Lieberman a "centrist"? Well, in the DC formulation of the word, sure. He's well-entrenched in the DC establishment, he's a corporate lobbyist's wet dream, he cheerleads military adventures abroad without shouldering any of the hardship, and he's quick to abandon party loyalty (and principles) for an opportunity to earn kudos from George Bush and Sean Hannity.
Under any rational definition of "centrist", Lieberman wouldn't qualify.
But really, there is nothing rational about DC or it's media establishment.