Electoral Math
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Something is Amiss in the State of Connecticut

Setting aside The Moose's strawman-laced paean to the man, I find myself in the somewhat odd position of defending the moralizing, needlessly "independent" Joe Lieberman. Lieberman has an undeserved reputation for being too moderate, when he is in fact more or a center-center-left member of the party -- that is, he is just to the right of the dead center of the party, along with people like Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden. He has an outstanding record on the environment, a strong rating from labor organizations, and a vision of taxation which, while not necessarily supporting big government, is certainly progressive. His reputation stems from (1) his descent into brazen hawkishness, (2) his constant efforts to disassociate himself from prominent Democrats, (3) his self-aggrandizing moralization on how video games are rotting our brains (between Lieberman and Tipper Gore, it's not that surprising that 50% of all young people voted for Bush), and (4) the fact that he represents a blue state with lots of employees in the financial services industry. That said, point (1) is an important one, point (2) make lots of people angry, (3) looks plainly obnoxioius in the face of a decline in social ills among teenagers (except casual marajuana usage) in the last fifteen years. Point (4) is trickier, and bothers some people more than other.

So, now that Lieberman is calling for a more bipartisan war effort, he's suddenly got lots of folks breathing down his neck. When, of course, Lieberman's is entirely correct. If the President were serious about running the war/occupation in Iraq properly, he would commit to giving the entire country and both political parties a stake in its success. Of course, doing so would require making large concessions in policy-making grounds to people he might disagree with, but that's the price you pay for greater support.

Of course, the fact that the Iraq war was a used as partisan political tool demonstrates how just how unserious the President is about reaching success in Iraq.

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Last updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 08:46 07 December 2005