Lieberman Takes a Hit
I am shocked: The New York Times has endorsed Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate race.
The Times rejects Lieberman's dubious claim that a vote for Lamont means some kind of Democratic litmus test that will tear the party apart.
That's far from the issue. Mr. Lieberman is not just a senator who works well with members of the other party. And there is a reason that while other Democrats supported the war, he has become the only target. In his effort to appear above the partisan fray, he has become one of the Bush administration’s most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates.
Moreover:
Mr. Lieberman prides himself on being a legal thinker and a champion of civil liberties. But he appointed himself defender of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the administration’s policy of holding hundreds of foreign citizens in prison without any due process. He seconded Mr. Gonzales’s sneering reference to the “quaint” provisions of the Geneva Conventions. He has shown no interest in prodding his Republican friends into investigating how the administration misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons. There is no use having a senator famous for getting along with Republicans if he never challenges them on issues of profound importance.
This primary, the paper concludes,
has become a referendum on [Lieberman's] warped version of bipartisanship, in which the never-ending war on terror becomes an excuse for silence and inaction. We endorse Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut.
Eloquent—and accurate. Let's hope that the Times endorsement helps Ned Lamont as he tries to topple the oleaginous Lieberman.
