I’ve said this many times, and I’ll say it again–while I’m not a CTer and this is really up to them and not us, if I were I’d vote against JL but not because of his stance on the war. It’s his profoundly selfish, arrogant political posturing that makes deeply dislike him. He parrots right-wing talking points to keep his centrist cred with the pundits, and enhances their leigitmacy. Look, Clinton supports the war too, as do plenty of other Democrats that have no primary challengers. I think they’re wrong to do so, but at the end of the day it’s not the big issue for me. My problem with Lieberman isn’t that he supports the war per se, but that he thinks supporting the war means doing things like providing Bush with political cover for Abu Ghraib.

If Lieberman really loves his party and constituents; he should just stay at home. But out of sheer GREED, Lieberman will be depicted like another loser in the history, just watch !

2. On a semi-unrelated note, and as an example of my sometimes juvenile character, I just remembered the bumper stickers that came out when there was still some debate over who won the 2000 election. SORE / LOSERMAN. At that time I was still a Repub, so I thought they were hilarious, but even now as a socialist democrat, I still find them to be hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of my major points is that that is not a settled question.

Not if your leader is hurting the nation more.

I guess I can see what you’re getting at. But it ignores something real: if you bash your nation’s leader in a time of war, then you hurt your nation. The greater the portion of the nation that believes that war is legitimate, then the greater the hurt.

It doesn’t matter how many people believe in “incontrovertible proof” that the war is illegitimate, unless that war has not yet been declared. If there’s any sort of decent argument in existence for the war afterward, then any attempt to decry the war and administer justice before the war is even completed commits the venial sin of being reactionary, and the mortal sin of making the nation appear weak and indecisive, and thus encouraging more external aggression in the future.

Lieberman apparently gets this. The Democrats he decries, do not.

No matter how much you think Lieberman’s positions are identical to those of the Republicans, is there any doubt that he would vote with the Democrats when it came to organizing the Senate, appointing committee chairs, etc.? Even if he ends up getting elected as a nominal Independent, he’ll do that.

It’s stuff like this:

“It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he’ll be commander-in-chief for three more years [...] We undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril.”

It’s not that he is strongly for the war — many Democratic senators are, and are not facing a primary challenge. It’s the way he expresses these views, by bashing those who disagree with him, and providing cover for the President and the right wing, that is torquing people off.

Given this blog’s centrist posture, I know partisan politics are not popular, but this is what’s going on. As Ezra Klein put it:

Because it’s not about the war. Or moderation. Or ideology at all. It’s about partisanship. The lines are brightly drawn, but in unexpected places. You can support the President’s war, but you can’t protect him from criticism. You can vote with Republicans, but you can’t undermine Democrats. You can be a hawk, but you can’t deride doves. The politics here are tribal, and Lieberman’s developed too severe a crush on the neighboring chieftain to participate.

Your remarks are right on the money. I got some wonderful news from a reporter from NH who has been following this race and wrote an excellent piece about there being a great fallacy among the spinner out there who are just assuming that should Holy Joe run independent, which he will, that Lamont will lose.

After writing her for some clarification, she returned a note to me telling me that “she has spoken to MANY republicans out there as part of her research and not ONE of them is planning to vote for Lieberman.

Funny how a CA neoconservative Republican from CA considers himself an expert on what’s going on in our state. Highly amusing but come August, we’ll be having the last laugh.

Nice rebuttal, ExJoeSupporter. And keen insight.

Yeah because that argument worked out real well for the Nazis at Nuremburg.

But what happens every time she runs? The Republicans avoid any moderately conservative (let alone moderate) candidates available in their primary, and got for ideological purity, putting up someone who is ever further out in right field than Boxer is out in left field. I’m a conservative, and a Republican for decades, and I couldn’t see voting for some of these characters! Obviously you don’t have to run from the center to win; you just need to be lucky in who you get to run against.

Somehow (on admittedly minimal data, from across the width of the country) Lamont looks like someone who would do for the Republican Senate candidate in Connecticut (and I have no idea who he or she might be) what the Republicans keep doing for Boxer.

If Lamont wins, the Republicans take the seat in November.

ONLY if Lieberman trys to run as an independant.

I’m afraid your neo-con diagnosis (even if based on the best information you had ;-) is wrong. Personally, I think most of them are dangerous lunatics . . . and the rest are merely out of touch with the real world (as opposed to the world the way they would like it to be).

As for Lieberman/Lamont, I don’t have a major personal stake in the race, being from another state, and therefore haven’t researched them in detail. Except for this: I figure the odds are good that if Lieberman wins the primary, he holds the seat for the Democrats. If Lamont wins, the Republicans take the seat in November. Perhaps the Republican candidate is more right on the issues of war and peace that matter to you than Lieberman . . . but if so I will be much surprised. And it seems very unlikely that he would be to the left of Lieberman on domestic issues. And unless that is so, a win for Lamont has to rank right up there with shooting oneself in the foot. Sure, after a term or so the people of Connecticut may turn back to the Democrats, and even select someone to the left of Lieberman. But how much damage will be done in the meanwhile?

Good night.

I used a biblical quote as a frame of reference highlighting what I certainly hope is considered a universal tenet. I personally could care less what the religion of any politician is. I’m far more interested in ethics, values and the job they do in representing me as an elected official.

From what I understand, Joe considers himself a religious man – if I didn’t know that, I’d certainly have picked it up from his display during the debate I’ll just define as his “holier than Ned” attitude. It was quite clear he was insulted he even had to be there, vividly displaying his pompous sense of entitlement…but, I digress.

To your next point, if and when I have made mistakes and inevitably will continue to do, based on faulty information, then yes, I hold myself accountable. I am a nurse and people’s lives depend on my making sure that whatever information I make decisions upon is based upon correct knowledge but beyond that, I am held to a standard via my profession that makes ME accountable for whatever action I take because I take on the responsibility of making SURE that I know what is correct and what isn’t. As an example, if an MD is being sued for malpractice let’s say because he ordered a wrong medication, that doc will most likely be convicted. However, do you know that the nurse who gives that medication is liable as well? We could say, well, it’s the doctor’s fault because he ordered the wrong med but it is up to the nurse to make sure that he/she performed the standard they are held to in making sure they have the right information about that medication. That’s the only analogy I can think of at the moment. So, yes, I hold myself responsible and accountable for actions I take, both good and bad.

There is plenty of evidence available from good, solid, credible sources that illustrate that the bush cabal indeed knew that Saddam had no WMD. There has been no conviction because there has been no charge because there is no PRESS that tells this country the truth because…well, have you taken a look who owns the press? The American people have not been GIVEN the truth and without that, of course there is no conviction. But when the truth does come out, as it inevitably will, maybe they WILL need those secret prisons they’re building just to house simply one layer of all the perpetrators of the war crimes that have been committed. If these things I cite are not familiar to you, I will be most happy to communicate with you via email and share with you the things the mainstream has purposefully and deliberately withheld from the American people.

As to your final paragraph, maybe you can try that on someone more gullible than I am because it’s a ridiculous stance to suggest what you’re saying. However, I’ll indulge you in your last question before I break for the evening simply because I have that strange, niggling feeling I get when I’m speaking with a neocon in disguise and if I’m right, I won’t waste any more of time – that, I have no “system” as you query. I don’t need one. A life snuffed out for another’s evil agenda qualifies as an innocent life. Tell me, how is it that they won’t even release the numbers of “collateral damage” from Iraq. Do please enlighten me should you have the answer because I’ve searched the Internet(s) many times over and still have found no accurate numbers. And by the way, do you know that soldiers who aren’t immediately killed on the battlefield but later die in the hospitals are NOT included as a war death? Just thought you’d like that tidbit too. And don’t you worry about my mental contortions one single bit. As a psych nurse, be assured you’ve revealed far more to me about yours than I would possibly reveal about mine.

Now, should you like to lose the condescension and carry on a respectful dialogue, you’re more than welcome to email me privately. Having addressed your attempt to change the topic and not wishing to subject other posters to this distraction, I’d like to stick to Lieberman/Lamont on this thread. That’s common courtesy.

Good night.

Now if I was a democrat desperately yearning for the glory days of winning elections and being in charge again, I’d pay real close attention to that.

You seem to be saying, in your third paragraph, that a crime is committed by those who got bad information and voted (wrong, in your view) based on that. Does that mean that, if YOU ever make a mistake based on bad information, YOU are culpable? It would seem to. Personally, I would fault those who knowingly gave out bad information, but not those who did not know it was bad. (And I’m sure you did not intend it, but your last sentence there would have Bush be innocent of a crime merely because he hasn’t, yet, been convicted of one. Which is nonsense.)

If you are simply taking the position (in your last paragraph) that nothing that results in someone’s death is acceptable, I do not envy you the mental contortions of dealing with situations where someone with a different view will kill someone unless YOU kill them. Do you just estimate the number of dead both ways and hope you counted correctly? Or do you have some system for deciding who is “an innocent”?

You’re playing with semantics – if you want to put it within the framework of what is man-made “law” based upon one country’s view, then certainly, you have a point.

However, when a law is cited but the supporting facts that lead to the enactment of that law are lies, any resulting decision from there on is faulty.

And yes, morality certainly does play into it, regardless of what stage the process of deciding to war was in. And in each instance, the moral vacancy was evident because again, a faulty decision was made because faulty information was given to those who voted for it. Furthermore, regardless of the wording of the “law,” it all comes down to its interpretation. Were this not true, we’d have no need at all for the judicial branch and all of the levels in existence. For that matter, the same is true of morality.

In this instance, with both subject to interpretation, I will maintain my stance that the crime that has been committed here by all those who knowingly voted for this war are those with the blood of innocents on their hands. For those who understood this after the fact and have refused to amend their thinking and acknowledge their grevious mistake, like Lieberman who instead has almost lovingly embraced this war, they, too, are participants in murder.

Dead is dead, no matter what you want to call it…i.e., “a rose by any other name still smells as sweet.”