That's you, dear readers of this blog, whom I'm talking about. The ones who call Joseph Lieberman, "loserman" and think that's clever. The ones who pick up an un-sourced story that Carl Rove has offered to help Lieberman's campaign, and run with it like it is fact. The ones who assert that Lieberman is "paid off" by lobbyists, simply as a matter of course. It's just so much fun to first bring him down, and now revel in the pleasure of it all. And if there's a little exaggeration, something that may not quite be true, but is so consistent with his scumbag character, than so much the better.
I know the audience of this blog, and only want to reach those who see beyond the battle to the larger war. I want to reach those who understand that capturing the hearts and minds of readers of this blog, or even those who voted for Ned Lamont, will not be enough to bring a Democratic victory in coming national elections. I want to reach those who want to think about the problems of actually governing this country, a task infinitively more difficult that ripping into those who do. Those without this mentality please find one of the dozens of other articles to continue the destruction of Joe Lieberman, and keep your snark and nastiness to yourselves. Others, please join me for a discussion.
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There are several points that I want to make. The immediate strategic goal right now is to get Lieberman to drop his independent campaign. This campaign will be divisive and harmful to Democrats nationally. One reason he would never drop it is that it would seem to validate the accusations such as those made on this blog. This is not an essay in support of Lieberman; it is an attempt to advance the deeper goals of the progressive movement. The anger, the malevolence, the personal antipathy expressed against Lieberman, while having a uniting effect on the shock troops, thats us, will be a turn off to the larger population. And they should rightly be disgusted by it. While my diaries that mentioned the achievements of Lieberman's career were blasted, I never saw any criticism for the most over-the-top attacks the man.
The job now is to do what the Republicans never did when they won the House in 1994. They knew what was wrong with the Democrats who had in many ways abused their power, but they did not really master the art of governance. Gingrich tried. With all of his faults he treated that freshman class like real freshman, assigning Federalist papers for them to read. Well, most of them failed his course, and became the pols that we now see fighting to maintain their own breed of corruption.
The task of the Democratic party is to show the larger electorate that we are not just going to continue the cycle. This is far from self evident. So, the response of most Republicans to the undeniable mendacity of their party leaders is not to turn on their own, but to attack "damn politicians, they're all the same." And character assassination is one of the black arts of such "damn politicians." My good friends, that's what you did to Lieberman. That's not all you did. There were tons of diaries, comments and stories, that cogently differentiated his particular transgressions from those of other mere muddling democrats. But it was still character assassination because any balancing explanation, or even praise, of other aspects of his career, were shouted down.
There is an historic message in yesterday's vote. It shows the power of the netroots movement, but still to be discerned is the nature of that power. Is this movement only designed for rallying the true believers? Will this be the Left's answer to the Sunday sermons by evangelical super stars? Or will this be a peoples think tank, where perceptions and passions are refined by interaction with others of differing viewpoints?
The answers to these questions will start to become clearer pretty soon.
One hour report: Looks like the true believers are in control of this web site. If I wasn't on your side there would be some pleasure in seeing this narrow minded rejection of anything that challenges your ideas.