Why Lieberman

In the world of commentary there is a lot of handwringing over the "blogoshpere" (read: dailykos) decision to heavily push for Ned Lamont against Joe Lieberman.

Basically, the commentators seem to be working very hard to find some basic inconsistency and radicalism in the anti-joe position. And they get wrapped up in Joe's support of the war in Iraq. I find this as odd as the kossola "scandal" were Kos supposedly supported Brown after originally supporting Paul Hackett.

I guess if you only reas Kos occasionally or don't understand how the dailykos in general works you could get confused. But the position has been pretty clear.

It's not Joe's support of Iraq perse that is objectionable. It's the sanctimonius way he supports the war. Like Bush, he treats anyone who disagrees with him as supporters of terrorism. I think Bob hits this point towards the end of this bloggingheads.tv segment. Beyond that, Lieberman's voting record is actually republican. I understand Kaus's support of politicians voting there belief above party loyalty, but the Kos response is that if you vote Republican 80% of the time then you are in fact a Republican. And further, those votes do not reflect the over all desire of CT voters. At some point politician need to balance their personal preferences over that of the voters. And Kos would additionally make the argument that Lieberman doesn't even get the "voted his belief" vote because on several issues he clearly attempted to present his position as more liberal than it was.. for example voting against the bankruptcy bill but then voting for cloture knowing that effectively allowed the bill to pass.