Once More, Tugging A Tired Thread

The DLC has a column up accusing Democrats who support Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman of "liberal fundamentalism" or, in their words "an intolerance toward dissent and diversity that can repel voters and make an enduring Democratic majority more difficult to achieve." The article goes on to argue that what "the left" is doing in opposing Joe Lieberman amounts to a purge of dissenting voices from the party:

The Democratic Party today is far more unified in its basic values and policy positions than it was two decades ago, and also urgently needs to expand its electoral and geographical base. There's less of an excuse than ever to indulge in liberal fundamentalism, litmus tests, intimidation of dissenters, and purges, and much more to lose from shrinking the party's big tent.

But that's exactly what the national movement to purge Joe Lieberman represents. Comparing him to apostates like Zell Miller is crazy. As Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid points out in a recent letter endorsing him, the most recent independent analysis of Lieberman's voting record shows him in solidarity with Democrats 90 percent of the time, about the same as Reid's own record. He's a recognized leader among progressives on issues ranging from the environment and labor to taxation and fiscal policy. He was a loyal partner of Al Gore's in the bitter 2000 presidential election, less than six years ago.

Some Lieberman foes, dubbing him "Holy Joe," are angry at him for championing the expression of religious faith in the public square, and for standing up against corporate-sponsored trash culture on behalf of families struggling to control their kids' values and upbringing. But his main sin appears to be his staunch and very consistent belief that the war in Iraq was and is right, even if that means occasional agreement with a Bush administration that he criticizes on almost every other issue.

Okay. I wasn't aware that primary voters in Connecticut, opposing one Senate candidate, constituted a purge. If the left were really trying to purge moderate-to-conservative Democrats who don't support their agenda, you'd think the knives would be out for Kent Conrad of North Dakota or Ben Nelson of Nebraska. (An attempt to run to the left of those guys in their states would be suicidal, but since the column already calls Lamont supporters crazy...) Hillary Clinton looks like she'll cruise to re-election in New York, a fairly liberal state from what I hear, despite her support for the Iraq venture. And though John Edwards now expresses regret for his vote for the Iraq war, he wasn't doing that when he ran for President in 2004, and primary voters supported him fairly deep into the season. The only other candidate who might arguably be in trouble because of her Iraq war vote is Maria Cantwell, but her problem in her own party is much less severe than Lieberman's. You'd also think that lots of Democratic House candidates who voted for the war would be getting it in the neck, but I haven't heard anything serious there either.

Besides, is the comparison of Joe Lieberman to Zell Miller all that crazy? Voting records notwithstanding, both guys are best known for going to the political chat shows and trashing Democrats for being too mean to the Bush administration. (I covered this in an earlier post.) Joe Lieberman may vote with the Democrats a lot, but he goes out of his way to be seen as cozy with Republicans. The DLC's shock that this behavior irritates Democrats around the country demonstrates that the DLC is dangerously out of touch.

Joe Lieberman's problem with the party stems from a failure to recognize that his adopted persona of a moderate maverick who likes to reach across the aisle is not one with which many Democrats, tired of watching their party bend to the Republicans on issue after issue, can feel comfortable. After six years of Bush, Lieberman's act has long since passed its sell-by date. Now I know Lieberman's response is that he votes with the Democrats 90% of the time, that he's not really with the Republicans as often as he appears, and that he has much more sympathy with liberal causes than he demonstrates. But, as Kurt Vonnegut so aptly put it in Mother Night "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Witness Howard Dean, whom the DLC column lumps in with these renegade leftists. For Howard Dean's entire tenure as Vermont governor he was fiscally conservative and socially moderate. But the vehemence of his opposition to the Iraq war and his freewheeling public persona transmogrified him into Eugene Debs among both his supporters and his critics. Is he really a leftist, as the DLC claims? Is Joe Lieberman really Zell Miller? Is Howard W. Campbell Jr. really a Nazi? Does it matter? Consider this quote from Mother Night, where Campbell visits his father-in-law one last time and receives the most devastating compliment from him:

"Did you know," he [Werner Noth] said, "that until almost this very moment nothing would have delighted me more than to prove you were a spy, to see you shot?"

"No," I said.

"And do you know why I don't care now if you were a spy or not?" he said. "You could tell me now that you were a spy, and we would go on talking calmly, just as we're talking now. I would let you wander off to wherever spies go when a war is over. You know why?" he said.

"No," I said.

"Because you could never have served the enemy as well as you served us," he said. " I realized that almost all the ideas that I hold now, that make me unashamed of anything I may have felt or done as a Nazi, came not from Hitler, not from Goebbles, not from Himmler--but from you." He took my hand. "You alone kept me from concluding that Germany had gone insane."

Right now, Joe Lieberman serves the Republican party better than he serves us, which makes the question of whether he's really a liberal or a moderate or a conservative shill irrelevant. Lieberman gives the Republicans bipartisan cover, and he makes it harder for everyone in the Democratic party to make the case the the Republicans under Bush have gone off the deep end. Over the last few years he's gone on FOX News repeatedly to lend his name and his moral legitimacy (such as it is) to some despicable ideas. Given that, I'd say that the response of the so-called "angry left" has been altogether measured and proportionate. If only the DLC could make the same boast in its columns.