Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Getting the Message Out
Oh, look, the NY Times is running an Op-Ed from New Republic senior editor Noam Scheiber in which he says that Liberman's defeat was due to anti-Bush lefty bloggers demanding increasing partisanization that will hurt the party's "electability".
Amazing coincidence, huh? All the same talking points CNN was pounding last night -- in direct contradiction to known reality -- repeated nearly word-for-word in the country's most influential paper less than an hour later.
Seems to keep happening.
Think we're exaggerating? Here, for your reading pleasure, is our abridged version of Mr. Scheiber's article:
Got the message? Good.
Now, to reality: Mr. Scheiber, like Candy Crowley and all the other stenographers in the media, isn't fooling anyone (we hope). Scheiber's only attempt to connect his these talking points to reality -- since he mentions not at all the poll numbers that show that most Americans, and not just Democrats, share Mr. Lamont's and not Mr. Lieberman's views -- is his suggestion that "the new model" (read: those whacky left-leaning, Bush-hating bloggers) care less than "the old model" that Lieberman "...was a reliable vote on what Connecticut liberals care about: defending the right to abortion, fighting oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, raising the minimum wage."
Memo to Mr. Scheiber: the "modern" Democratic candidates, if you want to call them that, support all those things. There's no compromise on those issues -- just the opposite: the progressive candidates that voters want (a fact neither the New Republic nor CNN want to hear about) support not only those issues but also the rest of the ones Democratics care about.
Which Lieberman didn't.
Lieberman personally led the Senate charge against Arthur Leavitt, the Clinton-appointed S.E.C. Commissioner who tried to curb Wall Street's pernicious influence in Washington.
Lieberman sided with Bill Frist, George Bush, and the extreme religious right when they attempted to abuse both the rule of law and an individual's right to privacy, using religious demagoguery and mob tactics to interfere in the lawful disposition of the will of Terri Schiavo.
Lieberman joined the anti-free speech movement in their dangerous and disingenuous attacks on their shibboleth, the "Hollywood Liberals".
Lieberman not only backed the War in Iraq, he adopted both the Bush Administration's rhetoric and its reprehensible tactics in defending it when not just a majority of Democrats but a majority of Americans oppose the war, and when Bush's favorability ratings are as low as any president's in modern history.
Lieberman went out of his way to condemn Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinski scandal when not just a majority of Democrats but a majority of Americans saw the Whitewater investigation as a partisan witchhunt, and when Clinton's favorability ratings were as high as any president's in modern history.
Lieberman let Dick Cheney walk all over him in a debate when nine out of ten Democrats who aren't United States Senators could have taken the vice-President apart on known facts and misrepresentations.
Lieberman conceeded legal ground in the disputed 2000 presidential election when it was not only unnecessary, it was a catastrophic surrender completely unmerited by the situation.
No, Mr. Scheiber, we aren't compromising anything by tossing out Joe Lieberman. All we're losing from the Democratic party is a maddeningly consistent anti-Democratic voice.
Amazing coincidence, huh? All the same talking points CNN was pounding last night -- in direct contradiction to known reality -- repeated nearly word-for-word in the country's most influential paper less than an hour later.
Seems to keep happening.
Think we're exaggerating? Here, for your reading pleasure, is our abridged version of Mr. Scheiber's article:
- In truth, Mr. Lieberman's problem wasn't so much the war as the perception that he's a less than reliable partisan. [T]here was a time when the support of key Democratic interest groups would have more than made up for such heresies.
But over the last six years this old model has broken down. As anyone who hasn't been living in a cave knows, traditional Democratic interest groups have steadily lost ground to a more partisan, progressive movement skilled at using the Internet to communicate and raise money. The most visible faces of the new movement are the thousands of political bloggers...
Call them the counter-Bushies, after the president whose singular talent it is to drive them to paroxysms of rage. But the rising influence of the counter-Bushies raises...problems. [T]heir judgment may be flawed when it comes to questions of electability.
Got the message? Good.
Now, to reality: Mr. Scheiber, like Candy Crowley and all the other stenographers in the media, isn't fooling anyone (we hope). Scheiber's only attempt to connect his these talking points to reality -- since he mentions not at all the poll numbers that show that most Americans, and not just Democrats, share Mr. Lamont's and not Mr. Lieberman's views -- is his suggestion that "the new model" (read: those whacky left-leaning, Bush-hating bloggers) care less than "the old model" that Lieberman "...was a reliable vote on what Connecticut liberals care about: defending the right to abortion, fighting oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, raising the minimum wage."
Memo to Mr. Scheiber: the "modern" Democratic candidates, if you want to call them that, support all those things. There's no compromise on those issues -- just the opposite: the progressive candidates that voters want (a fact neither the New Republic nor CNN want to hear about) support not only those issues but also the rest of the ones Democratics care about.
Which Lieberman didn't.
Lieberman personally led the Senate charge against Arthur Leavitt, the Clinton-appointed S.E.C. Commissioner who tried to curb Wall Street's pernicious influence in Washington.
Lieberman sided with Bill Frist, George Bush, and the extreme religious right when they attempted to abuse both the rule of law and an individual's right to privacy, using religious demagoguery and mob tactics to interfere in the lawful disposition of the will of Terri Schiavo.
Lieberman joined the anti-free speech movement in their dangerous and disingenuous attacks on their shibboleth, the "Hollywood Liberals".
Lieberman not only backed the War in Iraq, he adopted both the Bush Administration's rhetoric and its reprehensible tactics in defending it when not just a majority of Democrats but a majority of Americans oppose the war, and when Bush's favorability ratings are as low as any president's in modern history.
Lieberman went out of his way to condemn Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinski scandal when not just a majority of Democrats but a majority of Americans saw the Whitewater investigation as a partisan witchhunt, and when Clinton's favorability ratings were as high as any president's in modern history.
Lieberman let Dick Cheney walk all over him in a debate when nine out of ten Democrats who aren't United States Senators could have taken the vice-President apart on known facts and misrepresentations.
Lieberman conceeded legal ground in the disputed 2000 presidential election when it was not only unnecessary, it was a catastrophic surrender completely unmerited by the situation.
No, Mr. Scheiber, we aren't compromising anything by tossing out Joe Lieberman. All we're losing from the Democratic party is a maddeningly consistent anti-Democratic voice.
