We can’t allow the political class to define reality for us, and no class in America has a more perverse view of what’s good for this country than the way it is seeen by the political cultures defined by the professionals in both parties. And in my view Lieberman (and Hillary, too) represents what’s worst in this culture. This guy doesn’t define the center; he’s simply a Democrat who for whatever reason has allowed himself to become an accomplice with some of the worst tendencies in the Republican program. He’s an accomodationist with extremism, not a man of the center.

The Democratic Party really needs to find its own Radical Middle – a third way of thinking that effectively unites its wings.

That’s pretty much it, right there. Joseph Leiberman is the John McCain of the Democratic Party, except that McCain is pretty much smack dab in the midle of the Republican Party, while Leiberman is pretty significantly to the right of the Democratic Party.

I think that his voting record looks a little better than his record of smack talk, but Leiberman is facing fire primarily for the smack talk, and secondarily for the rightward tilt of his politics.

The point is that just because a group of radicals takes over the primary process does not mean that the moderate candidate will suddenly become a true independent. If Lieberman did lose a primary but win the general election, that does not mean he wouldn’t act like a Democrat when taking office.