Sunday, August 06, 2006

High Noon for Lieberman

Gary Cooper in High Noon was the guy who believed that sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do. It seems Joe Lieberman is the same kind of guy. Only he might not win the day. But I for one would not blame him if he threw that badge in the dirt and rode off into the sunset.

From Jersey nut :

Robert Kagen has an excellent piece in today's Washington Post on the Democratic Party's lynching of Joe Lieberman:

...Lieberman's sin is of a different order. Lieberman stands condemned today because he didn't recant. He didn't say he was wrong. He didn't turn on his former allies and condemn them. He didn't claim to be the victim of a hoax. He didn't try to pretend that he never supported the war in the first place. He didn't claim to be led into support for the war by a group of writers and intellectuals whom he can now denounce. He didn't go through a public show of agonizing and phony soul-baring and apologizing in the hopes of resuscitating his reputation, as have some noted "public intellectuals."

....If Joe Lieberman loses, it will not be because he supported the war or even because he still supports it. It will be because he refused to choose one of the many dishonorable paths open to him to salvage his political career.

He is the last honest man, and he may pay the price for it.

While many columnists root around to try to put together disparate pieces as evidence of "The End of the Right?", they blithely ignore the takeover of the Democratic party by its most leftist element, a viciously anti-war, anti-military, head-in-the sand element, and one that stridently smacks down any that are not in 100% agreement with their credo. Lieberman, possibly one of the most truly respected elected officials by all sides of the political spectrum (more so than the media-created McCain legend), is being tossed out of his party, you see, because he only voted against President Bush 90% of the time. Impure! Impure!

Reminds me of 1968 - hippiedom was at its height, universities and big cities were torn asunder by riots, and the unpopular Vietnam War continued to drag on with thousands dying on an annual basis. The Democrats, fully in thrall to that decade's anti-war left, nominated Hubert H. Humphry as their Presidential candidate. The election would go to the Democrats; it was a shoe-in, right?


I have often wondered how so many Democrats can rewrite and revise history and pretend that not only did they not support the invasion of Iraq, but that in fact the removal of Saddam from power was always seen as a bad thing.

As if the years from 1996 to 2003 as well as the dictator's many crimes never occured. I think that Lieberman's biggest sin is that he holds fast to what he feels is truth, even when it does not play in the polls. I think it will hurt the Democrats to defeat this man in ways many of them do not imagine. It makes them look small.

3 comments:

gumshoe said...

Joe has my respect.
and ceratinly the better of the two
candidates on the Dem 2000 ticket.

and well out-classed
the Dem 2004 offerings as well.

Unknown said...

gumshoe:

I agree. He seems like a nice man.

gumshoe said...

i think he's a bit more than
just a nice man,terrye.

he's not a dynamic speaker...
slow,a bit drony,not a schmoozer,
not a charmer.
that made me lose interest in him in his vice-presidential run
(not that i was planning to vote for the Gore/Liberman ticket).

reminds me of this one cartoon
character somewhat...
it was a droopy-faced,blue dog,
with a sort of Eeyore personality...but i seem to recall he often won against his opponents and waddled away.

with Lieberman tho,
i think he thinks things thru,
and does so with good-will,
not political calculation.

he doesn't blow with the wind.
rare in a contemporary pol.