This story in the New York Times should remove any doubt about the kind of politician Joe Lieberman has become.  He has, in one fell swoop, tarred the Democratic party (who now supports their nominee) as soft-on-terror, and attacked his primary opponent as virtually wanting this kind of plot to occur.  He is running Bush's 04 campaign all over again.  

Playtime is now, officially, over. By the end of the week, if he wants a seat on a Committee, let him get one of those apportioned to the Republicans.  Reid should strip him of the ones he has.   And give him an office in the capitol annex.

 

The D.D.C. has held that a private person may be prosecuted for receiving classified information and disclosing that information in the AIPAC case. What this means, as a practical matter, is that any reporter that receives leaks from whistleblowers within the government, and runs stories with those leaks, may be prosecuted.

A summary of the ruling is here, which contains a link to the full opinion.

Be afraid.

Satan is My Co-Pilot.

I don't. It's sad that, despite the British announcement of the terror plot, I even have to wonder whether this has been (as so many of these "terror" plots seem to be) hatched or released for the purpose of political advantage.  Here comes the moonbat theory:

• Suddenly, the "toxic president" story is off the front page, and replaced with the "war on terror TM" and vague, unsupported insinuations that it's an al Qaeda plot.
• Given the miami and brooklyn bridge debacle, the White House knows that terror "alerts" by them will not be taken seriously and viewed--whether meritorious or not--as politically motivated. 
  
• Bush and Blair have worked hand in glove on these public relations spectacles before,  and share similar perception and political problems when it comes to their fight against extremists.
  
• The Republican majority is headed full-tilt for electoral disaster.  One of the only things that saved their bacon in November 04 was the creation of a pervasive atmosphere of fear.

Put aside the fact that the USA's post 9/11 middle east policy in the last few years has made so many enemies that attacks like this are likely for decades to come.  I hope they really caught the bad guys this time.  It's bad enough realizing that there are people who are dead serious about killing civilians on planes.  It's even worse to realize that the people who are in charge of catching them might be lying about that threat.

 From the Washington Monthly

WHAT'S NEXT FOR LIEBERMAN....Taegan Goddard got a copy of the Connecticut exit poll and posted a few of the results. Here's the most interesting one:

61% of voters rejected the notion of Lieberman running as an Independent candidate in the fall, something he has promised to do. 39% supported it. Moreover, one in five Lieberman voters does not think he should seek an Independent run in November.

For CT democratic (and TPM CT denizens) primary voters:

(1) Did you vote for Joe?

(2) Would you have voted for him if you knew that he was going to run as an independent?

Just curious.

The news is out, and the voters have spoken. The question I have now is whether the Washington Democrats will get behind Lamont. And I don't mean via tepid "I support" statements, or even 5000 checks--I mean by full-on attack against a "Democrat" that's stands a chance of doing what Nader did in 2000.

If the Democrats are ever going to be an effective opposition party, Liberman's independent run cannot be tolerated. He must lose (and here comes the heresy) even if that loss hands a seat to a Republican.

The Senator has been in the party a long time, and the knives need not come out now. He should be encouraged to leave gracefully and privately first. If he doesn't (and his ego will probably not permit it) the gloves come off--and I'm talking shock and awe. To wit:

1. Any campaign staffer that stays on with Joe should be put on notice that such person will be persona non grata in the Democratic party. I am thinking specifically of his top two campaign guys (who ought to be fired anyway).

2. If possible, Lieberman should be sent (and i'm dead serious) a legal nastygram saying that he is not--in any way--to refer to himself as a democrat in a manner that is likely to cause confusion among the public or to generate the impression that the Democratic party supports him. (He's already saying he's "an independent Democrat." That's a lie. He's no longer a Democrat.) He is not the D nominee and lost the right to claim that support. ( The merits of the claim (they do exist) will be subsumed by the media story: "You're not a D any more."

3. The same leadership that came out to support him and this includes the Big Dog should have no qualms about coming out and ripping him a new one: in public, with TV cameras.

4. The various campaign committees (senate, house, national committees) should be piling on to make sure that Lieberman loses. If the party cannot keep discipline in its own ranks, and hand losses to those that double-cross it, its own voters (and donors) will neither turn out or give dollars to an organization that puts incumbency over democracy.

5. IT's far more important in this context that Lieberman lose than the Republicans do, for another reason. The voters of Conn. still have to choose, after all. A person that wins in Conn. has, by definition, to be a moderate. It will suck to hand that seat to someone affiliated at all with the current R machine, but it's much better than having a D affiliated with it. (Seriously, Terry Schiavo?).

That's democracy.

This race has been fascinating to watch, particularly in light of the corruptionadn bamboozling focus on this web site and others. If I were in Connecticut, I'd vote for Lamont in a heartbeat.  But I'm not.  Two closing comments.

First, in Lieberman's career, what I see is the corrupting influence that money in Washington politics has on everyone.  Here's a guy who--with a straight face--can go right back to the financial services industry for campaign contributions because of his vote against cloture on bankruptcy (the only one that mattered), and yet pander to Democratic primary voters that he was a good guy because he voted against it.  He cynically played both sides to the aggrandizement of himself.  That is shrewd politics, but lousy representation.

The second--as implicated by the Rovian dirty tricks of the campaign's closing days--is that he is no different from those that he allegedly opposes.  Politics is a contact sport, but inveighing racism, or sending out "goon squads" to make your opponent's supporters look violent is way, way over the line.  Seeding demonstrations is fair play; sending out folks to pick fights is not.

Finally, his current softening of his stand on the war--which although objectively unreasonable, authoritarian in its sweep, and at odds with liberal (and I mean Rawls/Mill) democratic tradition, was at least principled (if benighted).  What this all has demonstrated to me is that, to this politician, there is no higher principle than his own continuation in power.  That is not a position worthy of respect, much less re-election.

It is time for him to go.