SUPPOSE YOU WERE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY STUPID-- AND REPUBLICAN STUPID AT THAT-- HOW MIGHT YOU SEE THE LIEBERMAN COLLAPSE IN CONNECTICUT?

Scott from Sheer Golden Hooks sent me a story by someone so stupid that I couldn't believe she actually was given space in a newspaper, until I realized the newspaper was the San Francisco Chronicle, although even that is a kind of step up from her old stomping grounds at the L.A. Daily Birdcage Liner News. An extremely dim bulb with a big yap, Debra Sanders used to be a kind of Democrat but has found her true home in the GOP. She's kind of an even stupider version of Chris Matthews, if you can imagine.

Her moronic column in yesterday's Chronicle is called "Democrats' Version of John McCain" and in her feeble, feeble mind, that would be fellow-fake-moderate, Joe Lieberman. If you've never run into Sanders' nonsense before, you know what you're going to be in for pretty fast; she refers to herself as a McCainiac (although she disagrees with him a couple of issues, immigration being the one that popped into her empty head). In the world of people who get their worldview from Hate Talk Radio, like Ms Sanders does, McCain is a "moderate." No doubt looking at a voting record would require a tad more functioning brain cells than Sanders could ever muster. And DMI has made it so easy, too. They rate every member of Congress on how their votes impact middle class Americans. John "Moderate" McCain rates a flat F. His voting record is nothing short of abysmal-- unless, of course you think moderates vote no on every single issue involving women's right to choice and on every single issue involving availability of contraceptives. Basically even a brief examination of John McCain's actual voting record-- rather than the P.R. spin on Fox-- shows a garden variety rubber stamp wingnut.

So, uninformed-genius-with-a-column decides that Lieberman is the Democrats' version of McCain, not half knowing how right she was for a change. "Just six years ago, Democrats hailed Lieberman as Al Gore's running mate-- a position that spoke of the party's confidence that the Connecticut senator was qualified to take over the presidency, should something happen to a President Gore. Now, among the Democratic base, his name is mud."

First of all, the presidential nominee picks his running-mate. Many Democrats sat out the race because of Gore's horrible choice. Many others held their noses and voted for Gore because of the Bush threat. People like Sanders may have hailed Lieberman and may have had confidence in his ability to take over the presidency-- like him, she's more a Republican than a Democrat-- but I'm afraid I don't know anyone who was enthusiastic about Lieberman at all. Not even one person. At least she's aware enough to realize his name is now mud among Democrats, although she apparently misses the point of why entirely.

After puzzling over the poll numbers that clearly predict the biggest upset of the year so far-- and "upset" is the right word if you're a rightist loon too stupid to understand what a moderate actually is-- Sanders condescendingly acknowledges that "Connecticut Democrats have every right to reject Lieberman because they disagree with his policies. The fact that he is an incumbent does not mean that he should own his Senate seat for life." She then proceeds to lecture them about her banal and even moronic impressions of Joe Lieberman as "a cut above" other Inside the Beltway slime buckets. "While his constituents have soured on the war in Iraq, Lieberman is sticking by his early support of the war -- even if it costs him re-election. He has shown a dedication to principle that voters like to think they want." The rest of her column is even worse drivel. Had she bothered to do any homework she might have discovered, for example, that moderate Connecticut voters have many reasons, even over and above, Lieberman's bloodthirsty Likud machinations in the Middle East.

Take, for example, the fact that Lieberman is one of the biggest corporate whores in the U.S. Senate, selling out his hardworking Connecticut constituents' interests for millions and millions of dollars for Big Business. Sanders is clearly too dense to understand that-- explaining her self-description as a McCainiac-- but Connecticut voters aren't. In her sad, dark little world, Connecticut's moderate voters are filled with hate and rage against her heroic Lieberman because he likes Bush. She no doubt either doesn't remember or doesn't know that Lieberman was an essential part of the Enron Scandal. Lieberman, as head of the DLC, had taken tens of thousands of dollars from Enron-- but he failed to recuse himself from heading up an investigation of the company that stole billions of dollars from ordinary Americans while the Enron managers who paid off the likes of Bush and Lieberman and other DC Insiders. In fact, he did one better for his pals there. He dragged his feet and dragged his feet and dragged his feet, that they were able to steal more billions before completely collapsing into the worst bankruptcy in American business history. All this time one of Lieberman's closest political cronies-- a former chief of staff for the bribe-taking senator-- was an Enron lobbyist.

That's not the exception. It's the definition of Lieberman-- and a far better definition than the brainless "moderate" meme espoused by undiscerning propagandists-- even witless ones like Sanders. I found a wet dream photo for her though.