Weisberg on Lieberman: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
In his piece on Joe Lieberman for Slate—which some of you remarked upon below—Jacob Weisberg (full disclosure: Jacob was a college classmate and is a friend) invokes just about every cliche of Lieberman-Lamont campaign coverage there is.
According to Weisberg:
Joe Lieberman is a "highly regarded, well-ensconced Democrat"...Translation: Joe Lieberman is a long-time incumbent known and approved of by the MSM.
Ned Lamont is "
a preppy political novice from Greenwich."
Hmmm. What exactly does that mean? There's at least three insults in there, only one of which—
novice—really has anything to do with Lamont's political qualifications, the other two of which are clearly supposed to contrast Lamont with Lieberman in (what is to Weisberg) an unflattering way. In this context, the description of Lamont being preppy and from Greenwich has as much to do with what Lamont is not (Jewish) than with what he is (Protestant, wealthy). It's the old canard that preppy WASPs are not serious people.
Lamont's campaign
"was made plausible by Web-based 'Net roots' activists"...
Even if that's true...so what? Since when do journalists get upset when a grass-roots movement propels a political novice into the limelight? Only when it's a candidate taking on one of their annointed favorites. (It'd be as if someone dared challenge John McCain.)
Connecticut is uncharacteristically liberal, even for a blue state.
No, it isn't. It's not California or Massachusetts or Rhode Island or the District of Columbia. Its last three governors have been two Republicans and an independent, Lowell Weicker, who once was a Republican. (Almost throughout the 20th century, Connecticut governors alternated between a Democrat and a Republican.)
Southern Connecticut, especially the suburbs such as, um, Greenwich, leans Republican. When I was a kid, my congressman, Stuart McKinney—a good and honorable man—was a moderate Republican. So is his replacement, Chris Shays. Connecticut has two Democratic representatives...and three Republican.
Weisberg would be right if he said that Connecticut's cities—New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford—are liberal. (Although if I recall correctly, Connecticut went for Reagan in the '80s, and voted for GHWB in 1988.) Otherwise, he's wrong.
And remember—back in the early days of the campaign, one of Lieberman's criticisms of Lamont was that he voted too often with Republicans.....
But Weisberg's main argument is that, in voting against Lieberman, the Democrats are making a Vietnam-style mistake, and neglecting the seriousness of the worldwide "war" against Islamic terror and fundamentalism.
I disagree, for two reasons.
The first is that Weisberg misunderstands—or misrepresents—why people voted against Lieberman. Sure, some of it was about the war. But as I've written previously, many Connecticut voters are sick and tired of Lieberman. His sanctimony hasn't aged well, and neither has his lust for power, his incessant ambition. (Could you believe it when Lieberman said that the good of the country required him to run as an independent? The hubris.)
Many Connecticut voters also feel that Lieberman has lost touch with his state and that he prefers the company of inside-the-Beltway types. And Republicans.
Because it's not just the war that anti-Lieberman voters are protesting; it's the president and his administration. It's the sense that this country has gone down a seriously wrong path, and that President Bush is the person who has led us down it, and that those people who have facilitated the president's incompetence are complicit in it. That describes Lieberman perfectly.
And here's the second reason why I think Weisberg is wrong about the Democrats' repeating Vietnam-era mistakes. It's not that they're soft on terrorism. It's that they feel that the president's kicking-the-campfire approach isn't working; it only spreads the sparks of terrorism further around the world.
There's a serious argument to be made that, in the end, it isn't military force that undermines terrorism; it's peaceful foreign policy. Which isn't at all to say that force isn't sometimes necessary. But as we learn, force can negate an immediate terrorist threat, but inevitably, it creates more such threats. The war against terror isn't working...as the New York Times reports today, it is provoking more new apostles than ever before.
So why did Connecticut Democrats vote against Lieberman? Let's recap.
It's not because they are soft on terrorism. It's because...
1) They disagree with his support for the war on Iraq—which, we all know now, had nothing to do with terrorism.
2) They don't like him anymore.
3) They feel he has lost touch with his home state and become an inside-the-Beltway politician.
4) They think that his support for President Bush in various areas has helped the President take the country in the wrong direction, and they want to see a senator from Connecticut who will stand up to the President, rather than suck up to him.
It's not complicated, really.
