Redstate

was just thrown out the window.  It was packed inside the Big Tent labled Tolerance.  It splattered on the sidewalk marked Dialogue, right next to the street sign,Freedom.

...(and by 'sad' I mean 'not quite capable of causing clinical depression') that I don't want him to come over to the GOP because of this issue.  I would very much prefer our political situation to be that Sen Lieberman's views on natsec be unmemorably representative of the rest of the Democratic Party.  If nothing else, we'd all sleep better if we weren't quietly worried of what would happen if the folks who apparently are representative of the Democratic Party somehow end up in power.

That being said, if they kick him out, well, he'd be hardly the only Democrat who - painfully, reluctantly and with many a muttered curse* - switched parties over national security, is he?  

Moe

*Not that I'd know anything about that, of course.  No-siree-bob, not me, ya, you betcha.

us, or do you think its less than that or that sane leadership in the dem party could marginalize those people. See, I think that Clinton masked what was happening in the dem party a bit  as the far left kept quiet about Clintons compromises with Newt since he protected the Roe sacrament but once Bill was gone and after the 911 shock wore off, they are unleashed. I dont worry at all that they could regain power. Given the war and their behavior, I dont think we can screw up enough to lose to them.

But how do sane dems rise in the party or even get elected when the only $$ funding dem campaigns are the far left.

I just think that we have too many libs in America and they will be heard in a party. But they are dying off slowly due to Roe.

I really think the dem party is headed for the whig ash heap of history .

From the article:  "Senator Lieberman is past the point of being taken seriously in the caucus because everything he does is seen as advancing his own self-interest, instead of the Democratic interest," said a senior Senate Democratic aide, who described discontent in that chamber as "widespread."

How, exactly, is he advancing his own self-interest? And, perish the thought, could it be that he thinks he's putting the interest of the nation ahead of either himself or his party?

This would seem to be a wholly foreign notion to the Democrats. To them, it is clear that the Republicans are more threatening than the Islamofascists.

when Jeffords jumped parties you wanted to throw a going away party for him?  I'm sure none of you looked at him as a traitor.

Lieberman basically flipped the Democratic Party the bird.  That's his choice.  But when you run completely against your party, don't expect to be embraced later on.

I don't see how the Post is doing anything other than telling it like it is. Lieberman most certainly is hawkish and, relative to his party, he is being contrarian.  To admonish his own party for not blindly supporting the President who politically foolish.

that more of the less insane side of the party hasn't split from the Nutjobs.Does the the democratic leadership hold anything other than purse strings over the heads of the lowerdowns in the party? I find it interesting that they all, with the exception of Senator Lieberman, toe the party line. That just not right. The GOP has independent thinkers and sometimes strick conservative value pays a price, but that is called compromise,

I would have to agree that the democratic party is slowly dieing and there isn't a worry of them gaining back a Majority, or the Presidency for a long time. They haven't garnered mor than 50% in any national election in a while and that seems to be the trend.

I mean, I know plenty of good, decent people who vote Democratic in elections, starting with my parents and extended family and continuing out through my circles of friends and acquaintances.  Heck, my Congressman's Steny Hoyer, and I've no real quarrel with the man.  I don't think these people are in severe disagreement with me: to use a metaphor, they and I are arguing over whether to change the thermostat to 68 or 72.

But the people running the Democratic Party are apparently listening to the folks who want to burn down the blipping house, and that's what worries me.

Lieberman switching parties, should he so chose, is not at all likely to change control of the Senate from D to R, is it.

If Lieberman were to switch he, being an honorable man, would likely switch before the next election rather than pull a "Jeffords" - as in, run with the endorsement of one party, get re-elected, and before the ink is dry on the election certification switch to the other side just so you can be chairman of such-and-such committee.

That is why Jeffords is a four-letter word around here.

What is saddest however is the commentary implied in your statement...

But when you run completely against your party, don't expect to be embraced later on.

That Lieberman is perhaps the only "stay the course" (or anti-surrender) hawk left in the Democrat Party is sad, for the party, and for the Nation.

...I cannot seem to recall the issue vitally important to our national survival that caused Sen. Jeffords to leave the Republican caucus.  As you have brought his situation up as being equivalent to Sen. Lieberman's ongoing stance, I'm hoping that you'll have that information close to hand and thus save me the tedium of a Google search.

I'm a big fan of Lieberman's stance on Iraq, but this is evidence of why he's not the defense chief we need right now.  I don't recall Rumsfeld spending a lot of time worrying about civility in Washington--sure it would be nice if everyone checked their partisan credentials at the door of the war room but he's been around long enough to know that's not going to happen, and he has other concerns.

is his defense posture

He is a lib on most other matters.  If he was a Repub we would be chiding him as Chaffee who agreed with the war effort, thats about it.

Please tell us where in Lieberman's speeches and comments this week that he admonished his party for not "blindly supporting" the President.  I fail to see any such comments.

here in ATL, at least the non-hysterical liberals, well ok, I only said this to my conservative family dems in Alabama , at least since 2.5 yrs ago, that I had lost respect for EVERY dem in washington due to their disgraceful behavior while at war or due to their silence and refusal to expressly denounce their fellow dems. And I also said that I could not see how they, my cousins, could still say they were in the same party. I have found it funny this week for one cousin to be enraged at Dean and Kerry and even called them traitiors but got mad at me for pointing out Clinton in Dubai, that Murtha said worse things than Dean and that they ALLLLL except Lieberman had said bushlied for 2 yrs or tried to not say it exactly while winking at the far left and that this hurt the country given that it is an obvious lie to say that when we all lived thru the 90s.

And when thelogic moves in they resort to saying that at least they arent like Michael Moore. But then I point out that Moore was ridculed by them for saying much the same things that Murtha says.

Dems really depend on us being totally idiots to not see their deceit.

Its madness and the dems I talk to that know that I know that they know that i know they are in a state of denial and   are keeping their lips shut when they should be as mad as me know that they are putting me in a terrible position where I really ought to be slapping these otherwise rational people up side the head and say snap out of it you damn fool!

The Bush 2 months cone of silence rope a dope while the msm polls lulled the desm into a false sense of superiority has really put most all of them on record with audio bush lied and more and

that when Bush came out and showed the country the hair on his chest,

the mcgovern-fonda party was shown to have no clothes

and she aint barabarella any more!

the GOP because he didn't like having to support the President's tax cut and because Daschle promised him the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

His own alleged reasons can be found in his book My Declaration of Independence, available on Amazon.com for as little as 53-cents.  (They'll sell you a GENUINE FIRST EDITION for four bucks.)

If I recall correctly, Jane Fonda didn't have any clothes when she was Barbarella, either. :-)

are encouraging him to the D's.  I know I wouldn't.  I respect Lieberman because I think he is a man of principle and an honorable American.  Unlike the leadership of the D's who are neither principled people or honorable.

can appreciate Jane Fonda's beauty.  Too bad she has to open her mouth.

I do recall, however, unlike that French sounding war hero who ran for President, that she stood up in front of an American Legion Post(I think it was AL, not VFW) and told them how wrong she was to have done what she did in Viet Nam.

...that it usually becomes its own justification. That also explains George Clooney.

There's been  hundreds of stories decrying how Sen. Joseph Lieberman's reiteration of his support of the Iraq war was ignored by the media, compared to hundreds of stories on Rep. John P. Murtha's call for a quick withdrawal from Iraq.

The mainstream media's coverage of Murtha (as we've all heard is a retired U.S. Marine Colonel) centered on facts about increased insurgent attacks, little progress in training Iraqi troops and zero progress in reaching oil-production to pre-war levels.

The right-outrage-stories barely mentioned details of Lieberman's Wall Street Journal op-ed. Instead they  attack Murtha and the media for ignoring Lieberman.

The Connecticut senator, willingly or not, has become the latest pawn in the right media spin game, which isn't interested in uncovering or disseminating legitimate news.

Coincidentally, the flurry of anti-media, anti-Murtha, pro-Bush and pro-war stories, made the Bush administration's latest prank in planting  fake news disappear. The Bush administration went overseas this time to pay for planted propaganda in the Iraqi media.

But since it was barely covered, who knows that a  U.S. task force had purchased an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, to promote pro-American messages (true or not)to the Iraqi public?

I'm sure many here agree that if you can't WIN the hearts and minds let's buy 'em.

Of course the Lieberman "coverage" has also masked news that  military officials plan to request an additional $100 billion for the Iraq war in 2006.

I can already see him at the Republican Convention........"is not their patriotims that's lacking.  It's their lack of judgment!

Miller's speech was the best speech in the entire political campaign in 04.

I'm sure that when the funding request is made, you'll be leading the charge with the dems to de-fund the war.

Well my experience is that no one likes people they perceive to be betraying their party.

Anti-surrender is rhetoric.  Someday we will need to leave Iraq.  Does that mean we are surrendering when we do?

Joe Lieberman is a lot more loyal to the Democratic Party than they are to him.

Always run the stories you don't want nyone to read on Saturday. That way they will show in Lexuis/Nexis but won't register with the public.

must be an older model, needs to have an upgrade

Is that the modera...err...not-as-liberal DLC/Clinton Branch of the Democratic Party is patiently waiting in hopes that the MoveOn crowd will graduate from college and get jobs and start paying bills.

Their only other solution would be an actual party split, which of course would be unthinkable.  But I wonder, which group would get (or want) to keep the name "democrats"?

Please tell us where in Lieberman's speeches and comments this week that he admonished his party for not "blindly supporting" the President.  I fail to see any such comments.

He's just making it up.  This makes one wonder what else he makes up.

No matter what Bush does, his "strongly disapprove" number never drops below 35%.  That's the BDS crowd, and sane Democrats are afraid of them.  Even when the sane disagree with the nuts, they sit mostly mum because: 1. They probably don't like Bush either, and 2. With the thinning ranks of the Democratic Party, you simply can't afford to upset them.

It's a death spiral.

Sure, everyone agrees that we will leave Iraq SOMETIME.  That is not the debate.  The debate is WHY we leave.  Do we leave because we have accomplished our goals or because its too painful too much to stay in?

Democrats want to leave now, or very very soon, regardless of whether we have accomplished our goals.  That is why the Dem's position is properly characterized as defeatist.  They are happy leaving short of victory.  Getting our is more important than winning.  Winning is not valued nearly as much as getting out.

Sure, everyone agrees that we will leave Iraq SOMETIME.  That is not the debate.  The debate is WHY we leave.  Do we leave because we have accomplished our goals or because its too much to stay in?

Democrats want to leave now, or very very soon, regardless of whether we have accomplished our goals.  That is why the Dem's position is properly characterized as defeatist.  They are happy leaving short of victory.  Getting out is more important than winning.  Winning is not valued nearly as much as getting out.

Why is Rummy now being accused of showing a poker face? Is this man playing a whole different card game or are the accusations correct? Is Joe Lieberman waiting in the wings?

Raymond B

www.voteswagon.com

for this bit of nonsense

Someday we will need to leave Iraq.  Does that mean we are surrendering when we do?

It's unbecoming.

speaks out in support of the war effort, forget Hillary and the like, and the party is in a rage. Not too far in the background there is the whiff, the odor, of the desired one party state. As for the lost and depraved souls over at Moveon, Daily Kos, and the rest of those quicksands of the mind, in due time they would feel the boot like the rest of us.  At first the thrill of vicarious power, the orgasmic charge of tax increases, the elation of regulations,reduction of domestic oil production, increased monitoring of hate speech{?} and the whole panoply of repression and control.  And then too slowly and too late it would dawn on their primitve minds that they are in this too.  There's only so much room in the royal cortege,there can be only so many players.  And I almost forgot, still more campaign finance reform.

frequency with the libs or whatever iconoclastic contrarians they are,  around here lately. But for hawk, that was pretty un....

I may have to defend the income tax against sales taxes just topi have an intelligent conversation. I do think that if we had to write checks for our taxes, we would be way more likely to really cut the government down to size.

was implementing income tax witholding. It's so stealthy. It just isn't there and after awhile people just sort of forget it is happening to them.

Gamecock is right. If we had to write that check every month to pay taxes, there'd be a lot fewer people advocating for higher taxes to help other people.

If I run across one of her workout books or videos at a garage sale or a thrift store, I buy them and then walk outside and destroy them and toss them in the trash. I don't want some unsuspecting person to get them and somehow think she's some good person for doing workout videos.

Yuck!

When has freaking Lieberman ever betrayed the Democrats domestic agenda? Lieberman has been a DLC Democrat since the time of Bill and Hill?

Unlike the Moonbat crowd that controls your caucus, Lieberman takes the threat from Jihadism and the likes of Saddam and understands them as one great threat from a single, dark fascist ideology. No parsing, no "well, bin Laden and Saddam would never have had anything to do with each other because one was a secularist" bullpipe!

Please. There is simply no room for moderates in Donkeytown. Which speaks volumes about the true nature of Hillary Clinton's ideological makeup, btw. That con artist won't pass the smell test on election day.

I've always liked the idea of a monthly or quarterly payment. I agree that if Americans had to write a check eveyr month or so they'd pay a whole lot more attention to what happens to their money.

Their real 2008 prospects, Hillary, Bayh, and Obama, and possibly Flipper, are fraudulent supporters of the war with the finger planted firmly in the air to see which way the wind is blowing so they can get behind the Democrats to lead them. Take Hillary. She really doesn't support the Iraq war. It's all fraud and artifice. The story has it that she tells the Hollywood money people that she needs to get the yokels to vote for her so she gets all butch about the war, and Hollywood's left wing money winks, nods, and says uh huh. Same thing with the Silicon Valley cash.

Lieberman ticks them off because he's not a con man. He's not positioning himself. He's a Jew who doesn't want to see a Second Holocaust. People over at MoveOn and Kos don't think in those terms, so they cannot comprehend why Lieberman would find great value in a war that destroyed a fascist dictator who was a near term threat to Israel and a long term threat to the U.S..

whether or not to reply to this - but in the end figured I owe you one.

Anti-surrender is not rhetoric as surrender is the language of the Democrat Party in this day and age.  "Withdrawl Timetable", "Exit Strategy", and "Redeployment" are all dressed-up versions of the same sentiment - leave Iraq before the job is done - which translates very directly into "admit failure and go home" or, in other words, surrender.

Please take care to note that I have not even mentioned until now the "LEAVE IRAQ NOW!!!!!" moonbats.  The phrases mentioned in the previous paragraph have all come, in one form or another, from "mainstream" Democrats.  So I'm terribly sorry (seriously, I am) to equate the Democrat Party of the early 21st century with the brand "The Surrender Caucus", but their own words damn them to said characterization.

Lieberman is nearly alone on "the other side" - which knows full-well that we will have to leave Iraq eventually, just like we'll have to leave Germany - eventually.

Or should we now declare, once and for all, that the post-war occupation of Germany is, was and ever shall be a dismal failure?

No, I don't think so either.

probably trust funders who don't know anything about hard work and only have guilt because they did nothing, other than being born, for the money they have. This is why I have never wanted to give my kids things, other that Christmas and birtdays. Things don't have any meaning if they are free. But don't wait for them to grow up is my point.

There seems to be a consensus of "staying the course" and "not surrendering".

Well ok.  Great. What does that mean?   The only thing that I've heard is "When the Iraqi police can do the job".  Well that could take a LONG time.  We are expecting a police force to fight a military insurgency.

So let's assume for a second that the violence will NEVER subside, at least not completely.  And if the violence never completely goes away then how do we know that the Iraqi military can "handle" operations without US involvement?

There is no capital to capture.  There are no leaders to defeat, at least none that are controllng all the insurgents.  "Victory" thus be defined by some other standard.  What is it?  

These are legitimate questions and they just touch the surface.  And honest people can have differing answers on these questions.  

So while you may agree with Lieberman's views that doesn't mean that he's right.  And, for many Democrats, he turned his back on them based on his own personal motives and NOT because he has a greater sense of national security needs.

What the libs are really ticked off about is the fact that a dirty Jew had the cajones to take a contrary stand.

Coincidentally, the flurry of anti-media, anti-Murtha, pro-Bush and pro-war stories, made the Bush administration's latest prank in planting  fake news disappear.

Help me out here. I'm having trouble finding many pro-Bush stories.

BTW, when did the Bush administration plant "fake news"?

Mr. Google says there are over 10 times the number of stories on Murtha's comments as Lieberman's.

I really tire of your indiscriminate use of the Talking-Point-O-Matic™.

On the off chance you may eventually contribute something in the way of discussion this is just a warning.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/10/164458/01

Our honorable colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been carving up Sen. Lieberman.  Hardly a contrary opinion on the matter, unfortunately.  It can be an amusing, and depressing, read.

I find it regrettable that the Democratic Party is moving fast toward uniformity in its foreign policy.  Republicans are hardly in agreement over foreign policy, but I don't hear many Republicans attacking each other so viciously simply because they disagree.  I think, for instance, that Brent Scowcroft has been wrong for a long time on Iraq, but I'm glad he's in the Republican Party.  It keeps Republicans sharp and thoughtful to have strong challenges from Republican dissenters.

What the libs are really ticked off about is the fact that a dirty Jew had the cajones to take a contrary stand

Is this sort of comment really necessary?

I saw this a while back. It is perhaps a bit shocking, but I don't think it's over the line. Here's why:

By my grammar lights, the text following the word 'is' should be taken as an implied quotation, i.e. something some unspecified 'libs' are ticked off about. It should not be interpreted as a statement of the author's.

So the question then is whether the phrase 'a dirty Jew' might reasonably be something that would escape from the lips of an unspecified 'lib.'

The answer is yes.

No flag.

I'm more old-fashioned and prefer not to see racial epithets thrown about.  

But I guess since there is a 2nd hand account of Hillary Clinton using Jew in a pejorative manner 30 years ago, then it is entirely reasonable to use dirty jew now.

That's a first-hand account. Read it again. The person she said it to is quoted in the article.

Wouldn't you say the act of "planting" a news story in fact makes it "fake?"

Surly you're aware of the Bush administration's dissemination of fake news videos that made it on to local news channels?

Perhaps you missed Bush's fake   forums, where  invited guests ask the president rehearsed questions. Remember Bush got nailed faking  an interview with troops in Iraq.

I think Slate Editor Jake Weisberg summed it up nicely:

"A calculated and systematic effort to manage public opinion, it transcends mere lying and routine political dishonesty. When the Bush administration manufactures fake 'news,' suppresses real news, disguises the former as the latter, and challenges the legitimacy of the independent press, it corrodes trust in leaders, institutions, and, to the rest of the world, the United States as a whole . . .

That's the Answer.

The Question lurks out there.

Let's try a different one:

Because you insisted on regurgitating talking points instead of engaging in substantive debate, even when warned.

Guess the question.

Are you referring to me?

Talking point? From whom?

Surly you're aware of the Bush administration's dissemination of fake news videos that made it on to local news channels?

No one is claiming that any information disseminated to the media by our military guys in Iraq is fake.  Or at least no one with any sense.

Perhaps you missed Bush's fake forums, where  invited guests ask the president rehearsed questions. Remember Bush got nailed faking  an interview with troops in Iraq.

No interviews were faked, nor were they rehearsed if rehearsed refers to going over the answers ahead of time for editing.  They did rehearse the act of passing the mic and the military guys were given the questions ahead of time so they could think about their answers and would not be caught off guard and stutter around.  

Someone else summed it up more succinctly:  Don't get stuck on stupid.

"No one is claiming that any information disseminated to the media by our military guys in Iraq is fake.  Or at least no one with any sense."

Fake means artificial...are you denying the definition of the word?

Or do you simply HATE the process of how news is gathered and presented in a free society?

Also you say:

"No (Bush) interviews were faked, nor were they rehearsed if rehearsed refers to going over the answers ahead of time for editing."

?????

hmmmm well what exactly does rehearsed mean?

The troops were told what questions would be asked and who was to answer specific questions.

There's video of this, however the only place I've seen it is The Daily Show

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The Northeast Dairy Compact.

The administration threatened to dismantle the program, and he bolted to save his pork.

It was all he had to offer the voters of Vermont, so it had to be preserved at all costs.