Nice Try For An Analogy, But I'm Unconvinced

From Bullmoose:

Almost forty years ago, the Moose witnessed a good and decent liberal unfairly slimed by the ideological predecessors of the nutroot blogosphere. In 1968, the New Leftists didn't have the internet, but with their voices they shouted out and heckled Hubert Humphrey with the chant, "Dump the Hump." The Moose will be damned if he stands by while another progressive leader suffers the disgraceful treatment that was accorded the Happy Warrior so long ago.

The progressive leader he's talking about is Joe Lieberman, but before Wittman gets too excited about his analogy, there are a few things that want pointing out. Hubert Humphrey was, for many years, the darling of the left. The appellation of Happy Warrior was placed upon him not for hawkishness, but for his outspoken way of pushing for social programs and civil rights. When Humprey was chosen as Johnson's Vice President, liberals felt like they had a voice inside the administration (particularly important because of the strains between LBJ and Robert Kennedy). Humphrey actually came to oppose war in Vietnam; but Johnson threatened to sink his candidacy for president if Humphrey refused to back his war policies during the 1968 campaign. This lost Humphrey a great deal of support among liberals, who tranferred it first to Eugene McCarthy and then to Bobby Kennedy. When Kennedy beat Humphrey in the California primary only to take a bullet in the head in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel afterwards, liberals, already pretty raw after the death of Martin Luther King, were doubly heartbroken. They could hardly be expected to transfer their enthusiasm to Humphrey, who they felt had let them down at the same time that murderers had robbed them of their heroes. It was a sad business all the way around, really.

Lieberman, by contrast, was never what anyone would call a darling of the left. When he's been a happy warrior it's been more often than not (or at least, more famously than not) for conservative issues than for liberal ones. He doesn't seem to like liberals too much, and they don't like him back. I don't think Lieberman actually disappointed anyone with his support of the Iraq War (which I take to be genuine rather than tactical), but it did confirm an opinion that many inside the Democratic party already had of him from his behavior on other issues.

So, Mr. Wittman, nice try, but I'm not buying. Incidentally, you can read more about this topic at Talking Points Memo.