Joe v Ned: Round 1
Lieberman comes out swinging - Hardball with Chris Matthews - MSNBC.com
So, as luck would have it, I'm stuck at work late last night and pretty much hold the office hostage to an airing of the debate on MSNBC. I think even a less interested party to the debate would have a hard time suggesting that Joe Lieberman didn't do himself the most good with the effort. Heck, even one notable Nedhead himself had this to offer:
"When it's debating a Republican, it's like a tea party," but "when he's debating a Democrat he shows his passionate juices."
The Nedhead in question? Ned Lamont himself (the original Connecticut "Petitioning Democrat"). Yep, that's a fancy way of just admitting you lost, pal. Oh, and it's not even remotely true ... not that that matters, really. Everyone know this primary is about Iraq. And I'm sure even Ned has checked with his good friend Lowell Weicker (a Republican by any other name), who similarly got his clock cleaned (as a Republican) by Lieberman 18 years ago. I'm sure Lowell wasn't seen sipping tea with Joe back in the day.
Still, as good as the performance was for Joe, I suspect the effect on the vote to be marginal at best. If anything, there may even be a Dean effect - no matter what silly things Dean/Lamont says, his supports just go nuts seeing his visage on the tube.
Transcript here. Da Moose has his reaction here (short version: "Bully!") I'll dig around YouTube over lunch.
UPDATE: Even Markos ("We're primarying Lieberman") Zuniga finds creative ways to admit defeat ...
I mean, imagine your first debate being against an 18-year Senator and former VP candidate, with not just a statewide audience, but a national one tracked closely by half the blogosphere and just about the entire national political press corps. And given he's now the leader of a new people-powered army, imagine his desire to good for them, to justify their passions and energy they are spending on his behalf. Gah. I'd choke under that kind of pressure.
Gah. If only this were a real war, I'm sure Markos would be demanding a withdrawal already. But since it's just a Democratic Primary, screw it.
Yep, that's a fancy way of just admitting you lost, pal.
Lamont admits he lost.
Still, as good as the performance was for Joe, I suspect the effect on the vote to be marginal at best
Greg admits Lieberman lost.
I'm confused.
I'm confused.
Nuff said ;-)
Maybe Pug was confused by the fact that you can't even write your favorite punching bag's name write.
Moulitsas is Markos's last time, not Zuniga. Just thought you might want to know for your future posts about Markos about Ned and Joe. =)
... you can't even write your favorite punching bag's name write.
More irony than I can shake a stick at.
I guess it was a handicap for you to have to watch the debate while you were at work, because clearly you weren't able to give it your full attention.
Lamont proved that he's a political newcomer, but his early, obvious nervousness eventually subsided and he ended up presenting himself rather well. Joe came off looking like an angry a-hole. I suppose that's because he really is angry, but still.
As for Lamont's quote about Mr. Integrity's demeanor, it is 100 percent dead-on and you're either lost in denial or being intentionally dishonest. I hope it's not the latter. Mark Shields said it best on PBS a while ago - if Joe had gone after Dick Cheney in 2000 the way he went after Lamont, he'd be vice president right now. I'd only read about Lieberman until 2000, my first real impression of him came at the convention. My second impression came during his debate with Cheney, when he repeatedly slinked (slunk? slank?) into a corner like a beat dog and played nice in hopes that Master Dick would ease up. It was a sickening display. At one point he actually stopped agreeing with most everything Cheney said to apologize because, at a Gore fundraiser, Larry David made a silly, quasi-jab about religion that Cheney twisted around and around until it was some sort of blasphemous lashing out at all of Christianity. (A funny one, too, but LD can't help but be funny.) The other night against Lamont he couldn't stop patronizing, interrupting and otherwise trying desperately to establish some sort of alpha-dog cred. I wonder how long his handlers had to work him to get that aggressiveness out of him, or if he's so angry that someone had the NERVE! to challenge him that it came naturally. One of the smartest bloggers out there, Josh Marshall, put it best the other day: Lieberman's main task here is to prove that he isn't a weasel. He didn't do that in the debate.
And I won't even get into Mr. Integrity's outright lying. He's a politician, after all. But still - he lied a lot.
All of which brings me to this: For all of your talk about the big bad lefties in the Dem Party, and the borderline insane spittle-flecked ramblings of Marshall Whitman, why on earth won't you ever direct some ire at the real enemy here? I was relieved for you today to see that you actually bothered to make a couple of posts that were critical of Republicans. It was a refreshing change of pace. Howard Dean and Markos Moulitsas are of the same political persuasion as you allegedly are. The worst aspect of this entire Lieberman-Lamont fiasco is your implied assertions - and Joe's outright stated assertions - that Dems who happen to be more liberal than you are the real enemy here, not the GOP. Why is Joe so ready and eager to flip the bird at Connecticut Democrats if he doesn't win the primary? He thinks Lamont and his ka-ray-zee supporters are a more dangerous threat than a presidential administration that wipes its collective hiney with the Constitution, and a Congress that looks on admiringly.
A Sen. Ned Lamont would be one more vote for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That's the bottom line, establishing some sort of power against the Bush White House, GOP-controlled Congress and ultra-conservative court structure they're setting up. If Lieberman is going to continue to support the status quo in the disastrous war in Iraq - it's not going well, Greg - and pimp the GOP's ridiculous "values" issues, and plop down in a Fox News Channel chair to constantly decry people in his own party who are to the left of him (and let's face it, most everyone in the Dem party is to the left him) Democrats have every right to find someone to run against him who better represents their POV.
So why can't you support the Democratic nominee here? If Joe's pleas about seniority and bringing home the pork and "I vote on Iraq with my principles, so forget that I'm totally wrong about it because I mean well" wins out, so be it. He'll be the worst Democrat in the Senate, but hey - somebody's gotta be, right? But if Lamont wins the primary, he should have a clear shot against the GOPer there. Period. Just ask Hillary.
Bob T,
Let's see if I get this right . . .
(a) "Joe came off looking like an angry a-hole"
and
(b) "if Joe had gone after Dick Cheney in 2000 the way he went after Lamont, he'd be vice president right now."
Are you saying that the best way to debate Dick Cheney is to come off looking like an "angry a-hole?"
A Sen. Ned Lamont would be one more vote for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Hmmm, last I checked, Joe voted for Harry Reid to become Majority Leader. Not sure how this math works out.
... if Joe had gone after Dick Cheney in 2000 the way he went after Lamont, he'd be vice president right now.
And if John Edwards hadn't been such a pushover in HIS debate against Dick Cheney, HE'D be Vice President right now. So where's the outrage over that? Oh, right ... Edwards "got right" with the kossacks on Iraq, didn't he? I forget what it's like to be a single-issue voter sometimes. And yet, actually, a better reading of history might find some blame for the VP debate performance on Al Gore's (v2.0) own performance earlier. Where's the outrage over THAT? Oh right ... Al Gore's (v3.0) back in the good graces of the residents of kossackstan due to his own "getting it right" on Iraq with that bunch. Such an inconvenient little fact to deal with, I suppose.
The worst aspect of this entire Lieberman-Lamont fiasco is your implied assertions - and Joe's outright stated assertions - that Dems who happen to be more liberal than you are the real enemy here, not the GOP.
Wow ... that's the worst thing about this fiasco? I thought it was the outright stated assertion that Dems who happen to be more centrist than Markos are the real enemy here, not the GOP.
In actuality, Bob, the real fiasco is the fact that certain people outside of Connecticut are so whipped up into their own spittle-flecked fury over a Democrat who happens to believe we were right to go into Iraq (a view supported at the time by the majority of Americans) and maintains the belief that we should finish the job properly [with an Iraq strong enough to fend for itself] before withdrawing (again - the view supported by the majority of Americans). Egads ... a Democrat who's not only bold and brave enough to talk about a strong national defense, but actually act on it ... and maintain that viewpoint, as well.
Trust me ... it'll be a rather dark day if and when Democrats gloat over how someone who marched for civil rights in Mississippi (and from my reading of history, Jews were not entirely welcome there in the 60s), fought on the correct side of every consumer issue as a state Attorney General, has done more than any more liberal senator to build consensus for strengthened environmentalism in the Senate ... and yet there's no room for him under the ever-shrinking tend that suggests that one cannot support a war in Iraq if they dare live in a state that voted for John Kerry (who also voted to support the war once upon a time).
rachelrachel,
In the case of debating Cheney - the textbook angry a-hole, after all - of course it's best to fight fire with fire. Against a first-time Democratic primary challenger, I'd think a distinguished statesman would talk about his own record without resorting to sneering, condescension and an outsized, misplaced sense of entitlement. He is desperate, though.
Greg,
Perhaps I should have said that Lamont will 'still' be a vote for Reid for leader. That's why I hope the Democratic nominee wins the general election in CT, no matter who it is. Although if Joe gets re-elected as an Independent, it'll be because Republicans vote him in, so who knows who he'll feel beholden to? Maybe he'll mount an Independent bid for majority leader himself.
My favorite part of this is that you think you're arguing with a kossack. True that Kos & Co. aren't in Connecticut, but the 41 percent (or whatever the current number is) of support that Lamont has right now? Those are Connecticut voters, Connecticut Democrats that Joe and you apparently think are morons and/or rabid Leninites.
And I understand why you keep pushing the 'single-issue voter' meme, it's one of the talking points, but it's just not true. Iraq isn't the ONLY issue and you probably know that. There's a long list of issues Joe's on the wrong side of, I've mentioned some of them before. It is the biggest, though, and Joe is on the wrong side of it. At least John Edwards has acknowledged what a disaster the whole thing is. You say that's because he (and Gore) are currying favor with the kossacks; I say it's because he has two eyes, a brain and a willingness to admit a mistake. Joe can't bring himself to do that, or (more likely) STILL doesn't get that. Joe's "ability" to "maintain that viewpoint" that you hold in such esteem isn't any different from the way Bush "maintains that viewpoint."
Your last graph about Joe's glorious past just magnifies how tragic the whole situation is. Look at what he was, and look at what he's become.