Actually, several bloggers who are pretty active in this primary would be on board with this notion. Witness Matt Stoller from yesterday re. the Lieberman-as-Republican question.

Matt's point is pretty simple. The campaign took six hours to answer pretty much the easiest question a campaign could ever get. During a Democratic primary, a staffer could not answer whether Lieberman was interested in running as a Republican. Then it took the campaign six hours to track down the man himself to get the answer. That's utterly absurd.

I think most anti-Lieberman activists would argue two things: 1) he needed to be challenged for his abandonment of the party and willingness to be Bush's human shield, and 2) in spite of that, he would probably still be leading comfortably if he'd handled his campaign with minimal competence. They're fighting him because they think they should, and they're taking advantage of his gaffes.

I'm not sure I see a conflict between the two points of view.

Why is Bill Clinton supporting Lieberman?

Not so sure Lieberman's campaign has been that bad. I think he's just running in a different race than Lamont: The general election. I think he's been running as an independent in the general election since about May. That's why he seemingly "refuses to stop doing things to enrage Democratic voters." He will almost certainly get fewer liberal Dem votes than any other kind in November, and he knows it. If he's essentially given up on the primary, why should he care about enraging Democratic primary voters?

Personally, I think he should have just withdrawn from the primary and declared as an Independent in the Spring. Maybe his ego got in the way of a smart decision (make that probably). But IF he's now decided that his last stand is in November, I don't know how you can criticize his tactics. His strategy, yes. But not the tactics. He's got Lamont's negatives up around his positives (among general election voters) and he's been focused on R's and I's for two months now. I'm still waiting to hear how Lamont's shtick will work among non-Democratic primary voters.

Silly Matt,

The appropriate response to this Zengerle article, which says nothing the rest of us don't know, but that he felt like blaming us and smearing us over and over with anyway, is merely, a simple welcome:

Joy to the Kossacks Body Jason,
Joy be yours--
and tranquillity, my friend.
And peace and harmony.
The Kos body is one.
Blessed be the Kos body
and health to all of its little KOS parts.
You fucking douchebag

I was wondering where I read this before, and this was the subject of an article by Harold Meyerson in the WP on 7.12.06 - have they published a Lieberman manual for the WP press corps, or is Zengerle having flashbacks?

>Everyone assumes Lieberman is simply making mistakes, but no one is looking at the obvious ways his strategy makes sense from where he sits.

Was Lieberman really at risk in the general election?

It would be good for her to have a powerful Republican voice like Lieberman's backing her.

"Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings spammer."

I was last in, not first on.

AND, FWIW, I think I've given out four '0' ratings in the past six months. That's not much 'spam'.

Three of the four '0' ratings I've given were put on you, Jerry. And I've not no overarching agenda against you.

Perhaps you might want to see what it is that you're going that is prompting the '0' ratings, rather than making false accusations at me...

Alright I confess. This is why I was LOL.

You may be right but he may be surprised by just a gut "vote the bums out" vote anyway. And even if he does win, the message for liberals isn't to give up but to reclaim a party on the left (or at least one that isn't actively running against the left third of the American public). Let Lieberman become the "Republican". Let him win a majority if he can. But at least we retain a party that way. What good does it do for us to have TWO Republican parties. At least by reclaiming our own party we retain a means to be heard. I say put the pressure on, make the incumbents fight for votes and if nothing else you make them remember that their job is representing voters not merely themselves and their lobbyists. This should not be a short term effort.

I so envy the voters in CT. Our anti-war, pro-health care candidate dropped out so there is no major party choice on my ballot to oppose the WWIII agenda. At least Democrats in CT have a choice. That alone is a victory.

For one thing, Clinton is much, much, closer ideologically to Lieberman than he is to Lamont. The two men were on the ground floor of the New Democrat/Third Way/progressive centrism movement, which repackaged progressive ideals in a way that could appeal to swing voters and even Republicans.

Lamont is none of those things.

Two facts , three opinions and a conclusion

o I friend who lobbied on behalf of Conn's not-for-profits in the 70s  has warm memories of a helpful Attorney General Lieberman.

o The last analysis I've seen of this terms voting  was that he was the third most conservative dem behind Nebraska's Nelson and Louisiana's Landrieu.But more liberal than any republican including Maine's Snowe and RI's Chafee.

 Opinions

o suspect that some of those who are aching to defeat Joe would welcome Olympia Snowe .

o I don't hold against him his denunciation of Clinton's affair. Should he have approved ? Or pretended to.

o I don't believe in purges as long as the officeholder hasn't removed himself from the party by her votes e.g. if Joe were more conservative than Snowe or Chaffee. I don't think the country is served by automatons .

So I'd be happy to see Joe re nominated and re elected. If however he loses the primary and runs as an independent I hope he loses.

He hasn't given up on the primary. He still wants the party nod, but unlike most candidates he knows that he doesn't need it, that he can probably hold onto his seat without it. He's been with the party for years, and it's understandable that he'd rather win under the Democratic ticket.

But he doesn't need to go out of his way to appeal to the base in the primary.

Another advantage to running in the primary is that he can get the vocal support of Democratic politicians. Had he declared himself an independent, could he have gotten his friend Bill Clinton to come around and campaign for him?

"but I don't understand why the sharper knives in the drawer don't see the cards Lieberman is holding."

I think the Senate Dems and Clinton do.

It is the only reason I can think of why Clinton is supporting him.

Joe is blackmailing the party. He is saying to them help me win the primary because if I lose I will run as an independent and cost you a seat. If he wins as an independent all bets are off. He will go to the highest bidder. If GOP offers him a cushy chairmanship he will side with them.

Lieberman is one of the most unprincipled politicians in Washington. He is always on the side of the Powers That Be. Back in the 60s liberals and Dems represented the permanent govt so Lieberman was pro civil rights and anti Vietnam. Today neocons rule the permanent govt in Washington so Lieberman sucks up to them.

This is why the journalism establishment likes him so much. Take any issue. Monica, Iraq.........Lieberman is on the same side with the conventional wisdom crowd in Washington. If you want to know where he stands on any issue read the WP editorial page. Lieberman holds identical views.

Jerry, I understand why you're upset, but you're not helping matters by using the ratings to take revenge and using the comment in reply to insult Petey personally, whatever his faults may or may not be. The long string of quotes and search results is also off topic.

I welcome the chance to hear what you have to say, but I think the original issue was that the comment dominated by a verse seemed off-topic and its language, ending with an offensive word used ad hominem, was inappropriate here. So relax and do join us in discussing the senate race. We're all welcome here.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Oh I know, I know, tpm cafe comments must never use bad language! Think of the children!

Again, my point is that there are just not that many comments at tpmcafe at all, that unless a comment is pure spam, there really is no reason to rate it 0.

And if you think that last post of mine was worth a 1, why aren't you rating petey's response to mine that accused me of making an untrue statement a 1? I posted the long search to refute Petey's bogus claim to being a victim.

I have had plenty of 3 and 4 ratings here to know that I provide interesting and worthwhile comments. Most of the time. Enough of the time. I myself would prefer a tpmcafe with interesting and relevant comments even if they use horrors bad language, and even if occasion their point seems obscure to me, or how they make that point, perhaps by referencing a verse from Star Trek the Original Series about Mind-Controlled Zombies and linking that to how TNR poses that Leiberman haters are mind-controlled by Kos.

Now, what I don't aim to do by commenting, is make certain that every post I make is understandable by jhaber, liberalvoice, or petey. Frankly I try not to pay attention to thoughtpolice such as yourself.

We should be thanking everyone that comes here for participating and encouraging that participation, perhaps with ratings of 3 and 4.

TPMCafe? It just doesn't suffer from having too many comments. Which is why I say, say no to 0 ratings, especially from ratings abusers like Petey.

Again, your complaint about offtopic posts is not with me, but with Petey who falsely accused me of smearing him, why didn't you rate him?

I think Mirii is giving Lieberman the benefit of the doubt.

The proportionality of lying about a blow job, and lying your way into a war that kills thousands of Americans and rapes an entire country ... well, there's no comparison on any rational basis.

Yet Lieberman is outraged by one, but quite placid about a whole bunch of far more extreme instances.

Mirii assumes that Lieberman is rational and consistent, therefore she concludes his initial outrage was phony. That's a valid and defensible hypothesis.

On the other hand, if we assume that Lieberman's initial outrage was genuine, and that he really does have no moral problem with the subsequent conduct... then what does this tell us?

It tells us that Lieberman's moral compass is literally twisted into a pretzel. The man is so irrational he is incapable of making the normal distinctions open to a five year old. He's unfit for the position of school crossing guard, much less Senator.

I'm not sure you've thought this through, Flavius. Lieberman's moral outrage over Clinton's behaviour cannot be considered in isolation, but rather in context of his later behaviour.

If you feel Lieberman is genuinely sincere throughout, then I honestly can't think of an assessment more brutal or damning.

flavius, for a smart guy, your argument has a silly component. Whatever Lieberman was and however you average out his votes (what are we supposed to be bean counters?), you do have to weight votes and actions and not just present a scorecard. Lieberman enabled the war in Iraq. He supports more war. He wants war with Iran. He wannts a longer and more violent war in Iraq. He attacks anti-war Dems viciously. he is a supporter of many of the worst parts of the Bush agenda. Please stop with your silly scorecard. This country and the world are in tatters because of neocons like Lieberman. We will not change this country unless we get rid of such dreck.

"How do you know his outrage was phony ?"

How do I know Bush is not a genius? Or maybe this is closer, how do I know Cheney is not a genial old man? I really don't. But if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck....