Pundits, right and left, every time the host brings up the Lieberman - Lamont primary, call it a single issue election. Every time I find myself yelling back at the TV, "It's not about the fucking war!" While Lieberman's lockstep support of the President on that issue is one of reasons a lot of people dislike Joe, it is far from the only reason that people want him out of the Senate. Yet, the pundits and hosts (this morning it was Donna Brazile (would you trust her to run your campaign?), George Will and host George Stephanopoulos) say that the anger from the left is only focused on the war issue and that the netroots want lockstep agreement on that issue. The same theme was also on Olbermann following the debate. In this interparty dispute, they can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that Joe Lieberman is, on issues more than just the war, not a good Democrat.
For example, on
This Week, we heard the pundits claim that Joe had only disagreed with Democrats on the issue of the war, and that on
every other issue, from the environment to healthcare, he was a good Democrat. This sentiment was echoed by Sen. Dodd on
Face the Nation this morning (where he was also gracious enough to include dissatisfaction with the administration along with the familiar war line). Yet that is not true, and there are many more reasons why Lieberman is so disliked. It is Lieberman's phoniness, his unflagging support for the administration and willingness to give the GOP political cover, his stance on reproductive rights, his pass as part of the "Gang of 14" on the conservative judges. It is all of these things and more that are the causes of Democratic dissatisfaction with Rape Gurney Joe, yet it is unacknowledged.
The pundits claim that all the anger from the left is over the war and that we are out to create a single-issue election (OK, maybe they'll give us two, the war and the president) and that the left is still defined by the single issue of war. This is the simple caricature that the right has tried so hard to frame the left with since the sixties, and one that is simply false. Yet the pundits, from whatever side, willingly endorse it. In addition, they seem more than happy to claim the activist base is looking to create a small tent party without dissent, ignoring the broad range of elected officials and candidates that are far from down the line supporters of single issue politics. They ignore Schweitzer and Tester, Webb, Salazar, and the newly minted Democrats in Kentucky that are big party Democrats who understand the party's commitment to people.
In Connecticut, and across the country, the message needs to go out: It's not just about the fucking war.