I'm Telling You For the Last Time

It's time once again for a dissection. Next on the table, Jonathan Chait:

Part of what I'm arguing, though, is that the tactic of embracing the Lamont primary is more likely to make the problem worse than to make it better. Consider the scenarios. If Lamont wins the primary and the general election, which is akin to drawing an inside straight, then the direct effect is positive. But, as I argued in my previous Lieberman/Lamont column, if you defeat Lieberman, "he'll play the same role as before, only this time with the power of martyrdom behind him: the virtuous anti-Democrat, too good and honest for his party."

My response to that is this. If Joe Lieberman, private citizen, wants to spend his time in the wilderness pissing on the liberals who drove him from power, that's fine. It's a free country, and he can do whatever the hell he likes. Indeed, based on the way he behaved with Lamont in the debate, I'd expect some tantrums in the aftermath of electoral meltdown. Joe Lieberman is certainly the last person to ever blame himself for his problems. His attitude about the people whom he wants to vote for him reminds me of a certain heavyset, bald loudmouth:

Homer: [melancholy] My campaign is a disaster, Moe. [angry] I hate the public so much! [melancholy] If only they'd elect me. [angry] I'd make 'em pay! [melancholy] Aw, Moe, how do I make 'em like me?

I don't see why Chait sees Lieberman's future disgruntlement as such an enormous problem that we need to make Joe Lieberman senator for life. As a private citizen, Lieberman won't command nearly as much airtime, and he won't be able to do any damage during negotiations with Republicans. He can whine, but without portfolio, what can he actually do? Unless he's planning to climb to the top of the Capitol and pick off left leaning politicians with a deer rifle, I'm not scared.

On top of the tactical argument, I was drawing on the broader problems I see lying in the future. I don't think you can evaluate the Lieberman race in a vacuum. It's part of a broader fight within the Democrat Party and the liberal intelligentsia. Kevin Drum complains that my description of the liberal internet activists--"But in fact, they believe that any deviation from the party line--except for a few circumscribed instances, such as Democrats running for office in red states--is an unforgivable crime."--is too vague. "Deliberately vague," as Drum puts it.

Yes, I suppose the vagueness was deliberate--not, as he suggests, in order to conceal my own ignorance, but due to the aforementioned space constraints. Since I have space here, I'd offer up two prime examples of the party line. The first is Iraq. To be on the side of the angels, one must favor withdrawal and believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002. The second is the netroots themselves. To be in the good graces of the activists, one must believe not only that the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications, but to signal that one accepts a Manichean battle between virtuous people-powered activists and corrupt Washington insiders.

Well, to be strict about it, the belief that the netroots consists of virtous people-powered activists against corrupt Washington insiders is more a Dailykos belief than an actual party line, unless party lines don't require actual political parties in order to be enforced. That aside, I find Chait's description of the netroots's feelings about the war in Iraq insupportable.

Chait is right to say that you can't evaluate the Liberman race in a vacuum. What's significant to me about it is that alone among Senate Democrats who voted to authorize using force in Iraq, Joe Lieberman has drawn a substantial primary challenge. Why? Maria Cantwell voted the same way Lieberman did, and has also refused to reverse herself. She's also in a pretty blue state, yet somehow she's cruising through her primary. (Her leading opponent, and I use the word leading in its broadest possible sense, recently quit the race and endorsed her.) The only other Democratic Senator facing a significant primary challenge is Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, and his challenge comes from the right.

The left's problems with Lieberman go much deeper than Iraq. Lieberman's habit of adding a patina of bipartisanship to obviously partisan Republican enterprises--Impeachment, the War in Iraq, and of undermining Democrats--the debate with Cheney, the 2000 recount--has irritated Democrats in general in the left in particular for many years now. They read Lieberman as a man who doesn't act so much out of principle as out of a hunger for praise and recognition from pundits as a bipartisan statesman. He loves his enemies and hates his friends, and a good many of his friends have grown sick of it. Having spent years troubling his own house, he's about to inherit the wind.

So, Mr. Chait, if the current argument in the Democratic party worries you, I don't blame you. But place blame for the problem where it belongs, on Joe Lieberman: the arrogant, myopic, career pol who, more concerned with his own future than with the future of his party, spits on the voters who've always supported him in the past.