This election day in Connecticut has been very revealing about Joe Lieberman, Liebermanism, and its supporters. Three things really stand out.
First we had the Lanny Davis column on the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages this morning. Davis cherrypicks a handful of random comments from Daily Kos and Huffington Post, and on the basis of these few comments, smears all of us in the Lieberman opposition with the charge of anti-Semitic hate. Don't forget that these are the same pages pages where false outrageous smears of Lanny Davis's old friend and employer Bill Clinton were the staple through the 1990s. Not to mention the pages where Joe Lieberman first questioned our patriotism for criticizing George Bush. Lanny Davis touches all the bases with his FoxNews/WSJ op-ed style, questioning and smearing Democrats--classic Liebermanism style.
Second, Joe himself says that we are the "antisecurity wing of the Demcoratic Party," feeding and repeating the GOP lie. Once more, he questions the patriotism of Democrats who disagree with him, accusing us of forgetting 9/11. Again the FoxNews Democrat in Joe rears its head:
"They are anxious to say the left wing is taking over, the antisecurity wing," Mr. Lieberman said of Republicans.
Finally, the third event crystalizes why Liebermanism is, at heart, hostile to Democrats and the Democratic Party. Marty Peretz, owner of The New Republic, the Lieberman-supporting publication, does not want a Democratic Congress. Peretz, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt ( and doing an interview with Hewitt is revealing in and of itself) said this:
HH: Do you want the Democrats to win majorities in the House or the Senate, Martin Peretz?
MP: I'm...I'm appalled by some of the people who would become head of Congressional committees.
HH: Is that a no?
MP: Uh, but I'm also appalled by some of the shenanigans...
HH: But is that...I've got five seconds. Is that a no, Martin Peretz?
MP: It's a cowardly refusal to answer.
These three events reveal Liebermanism in an nutshell. Joe's Party of One has no room for disagreement, no room for questions, no room for Democrats.
But to really put a cap on the day, we've got Hackergate. The traditional media has revealed its utter ridiculousness by its incessant and breathless coverage of the whiniest, most stupid story of the day--the so-called hacked Web site story. Here's what they've all missed in this absurd story--a truly offensive Liebermanism anecdote. The Lieberman Principle is invoked one more time when Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith outrageously compares his silly Web site going down to actual voter suppression.
Smith said the site began having problems Monday night and crashed for good at 7 a.m.
"Voters cannot go to our Web site. They cannot access information," Smith said. "It is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters." [Emphasis added.]
This statement is an absolute affront coming from Joe Lieberman and his campaign. Lieberman certainly did not have this much fight in him when it came to protecting voters' rights against actual, honest to goodness voter suppression and disenfranchisement in the 2000 election theft. I guess, like Marty Peretz, he's ambivalent about a Democratic victory.
This pathetic display by the Lieberman campaign is made even more pathetic by the fact that the traditional media makes it the story of the day. What an embarrassment.