Al Hunt, you’re a wanker. Here’s how you described Lieberman:
The 64-year-old incumbent’s considerable charm, genuine humor and independent integrity are assets in his home state as well as among political colleagues…Joe Lieberman is a thoroughly decent, intelligent, compassionate public figure with a solid, three-term record of supporting mostly liberal positions on the environment, civil rights and social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Here is how you described Ned Lamont:
This contest is intense, irrationally so, with Lieberman’s opponent a heretofore obscure wealthy aristocrat named Ned Lamont…
Other than family and a few friends, however, no one in Connecticut will vote for or against Ned Lamont. The question is whether you’re for or against Lieberman.
At least you didn’t call Ned a wife beater. You used your column to make a bunch of shitty arguments. Let’s start with your central claim, that Joe Lieberman is a “thouroughly decent…compassionate public figure.” Why don’t we ask Michael Shiavo about that?
Not only did Joe Lieberman support the illegal political intervention in the private and legally protected decisions of my family, he went out of his way to defend it. On national television.
So when I thought about going to Connecticut to remind voters what Joe Lieberman really thinks about family values and personal privacy, I didn’t have to think too long.
I can see why “decency” and “compassion” are not the first adjectives Michael Schiavo thinks of when he pictures Joe Lieberaman. “Indecent” and “shameless” probably are closer to the mark. And that’s a crucial factor in why Lieberman’s position on the war is so grating. It’s one thing to have advocated the invasion of Iraq before Dick Cheney ever officially did so, it’s another to say that it is going well. No other Democrat in the country has that record.
Here’s the thing, Al. The war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. In fact, the whole Middle East is a disaster. And it’s Joe Lieberman’s fault. It’s not just Joe Lieberman’s fault. It’s the fault of anyone that has enabled the Bush administration’s neo-conservative foreign policy. How many of those enablers have been floated as possible replacements for Donald Rumsfeld? Only Joe. Why on fuck’s earth would anyone that opposes the neo-conservative agenda vote for Joe Lieberman? And here is another thing about the debacle in the desert. It ain’t decent and it ain’t compassionate. It’s a slaughter, and the architects of the slaughter are butchers. Now anyone can make a mistake. But to look at the carnage in Iraq and say things are going well is like looking at Dunkirk and giving the British generals the Medal of Freedom. Actually, it’s worse than that. It’s like looking at Darfur and saying things are going well.
No decent and compassionate person would say the following:
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.
Now, Al, here’s another thing. What we just read is dishonest. And being dishonest makes you a liar. So, I have a problem with what you wrote here:
This person [Lieberman] isn’t recognizable in reading critics such as the left-wing blogs, where “liar” is one of the nicer epithets. “How can any true Democrat vote for this guy?” asks one blog of the three-term senator.
Why wouldn’t we call him a liar. He went to Iraq and came back and lied about what he saw there. So, he’s a liar and some left-wing bloggers call him a liar because he lies. He also lies about Ned Lamont, but that’s another issue and mostly about politics, not people’s lives. Here’s another thing Joe said:
I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November’s elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
First of all, I don’t think we can continue with much more of this “progress”, Al. Any more progress and we could really be in trouble. But, how do you think it makes me feel to watch Harry Reid shut down the Senate to try to get some answers about how “President Bush too America into the war uttter disaster in Iraq”, and then have to read Joe Lieberman tell me he is disappointed about that decision?
I’m a Democrat, Al, as I know you are. I don’t take kindly to having ubiquitous Senators going around stepping on the leader’s message. It matters how we went to war because the war has no moral legitimacy because it was based on lies. Conscious, deliberate lies. There’s an investigation in the Intelligence Committee about it. It’s being stonewalled past the midterms. Joe likes that idea. Most Democrats don’t.
And then there is your whole take on the Clintons.
A Lieberman loss also poses a dilemma for the party’s 2008 presidential front-runner, Hillary Clinton. She supports Lieberman in the primary and says she’ll back the winner of that race in the general election. The New York Democrat is walking a delicate line between the party’s factions, assailing the Bush administration’s handling of the war while opposing a firm withdrawal schedule.
Here a clue for you, Al. Take a look at the latest Daily Kos straw poll. Hillary got beat by Feingold 38%-2%. Two percent, Al. Why do you think that is? Because she is Jewish? No, it’s because she refuses to accept reality about Iraq. Iraq is a lost cause, Al. Lieberman and his crazy friends kicked Humpty Dumpty off the wall. Hillary had a hand in that, too. Democrats have taken notice. Hillary’s problem is already here. If it gets worse after Lieberman loses, it will only because we have a new target in a blue state that just doesn’t get it.
You quote this egghead, Al:
“A Lieberman loss is very bad for Democrats; it says we are one dimension on Iraq,” says Peter Hart, a top Democratic polltaker. “Politically, Iraq should be a debate about the Bush administration. A Lieberman defeat detracts from that.”
Peter Hart is a wanker, Al. He doesn’t even make any sense. It’s hard to make the debate about the Bush administration when Joe is going on the Sean Hannity Show and Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and making Bush’s case for him. Why is that hard to understand?
Joe is a funny guy who has a nice smile, a nice family, and is progressive on many issues. His hands are also drenched in blood. He hasn’t apologized, he hasn’t called for the resignation of anyone. How can I give him any credit for protesting the Vietnam War when he abuses principled opponents of the Mess’o potamia?
You can’t advocate the invasion of another country, not care that it is justified with lies, not care that it is going badly, lie about it going well, and complain when you are criticized for it. A compassionate person would not advocate shock and awe on an innocent population. A decent person wouldn’t tolerate being lied into a war that kills tens of thousands of innocent people.
In the beltway, wars like Iraq are thought of like errant golf drives. But we can’t get a mulligan on this one. We never should have listened to people like Joe Lieberman and gone into Iraq. There are no reasons to listen to Joe now, or for six more years. It wouldn’t be a “decent, intelligent, compassionate” thing to do.
Al Hunt, you are just one more pundit permanently brainwashed by cocktail frankfurters. If you want to understand compassion then ask yourself what the following people would think of Joe Lieberman: Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, Bishop Tutu, the Dalai Lama, the Pope, Martin Luther King, Jr. We admire those people for a reason, Al. And they don’t think starting wars for no good reason is something decent people should do. They’d all vote against Joe Lieberman…which should tell you something.
