WHY NED LAMONT IS TRIUMPHING OVER THE REPREHENSIBLE ANN COULTER-DICK CHENEY POLITICS OF THE PAST-- AND HOW BILL CLINTON FITS IN

Driving over to meet Ned Lamont for the first time, I was pretty sure I would be supporting him; he was against the occupation of Iraq and he was against the morally bankrupt, overly sleazy and completely sanctimonious Lieberman who I knew was poison for Democrats and poison for America. But meeting Ned in person added a whole new dimension. After talking with him, with some of his closest friends and with his wife and then listening to his first attempt at a "stump speech," I knew Ned was way more than just "not Lieberman." This was a smart man and a good man who would make an exceptional U.S. Senator. Today Bob Borosage was an outstanding editorial in the Connecticut Post called Lamont victory: A triumph of new moral center and, despite the coordinated effort from the Republican corporate noise machine, it rings more than true.

A bottom-feeding dirtbag like the slimy Gerstein thing may prefer you listen to what Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and that ilk have to say about the shock waves Ned's victory sent through the "dead sea of American politics," but Borosage makes a lot more sense.

"Lamont did the impossible-- this virtual unknown beat in his own party's primary an 18-year incumbent with universal name recognition, a more than $9 million campaign war chest and the support of Washington insiders, the punditry and the corporate lobbies. His victory represents a growing voter revolt against the failed policies and politics of the Bush administration and its congressional enablers, particularly the debacle in Iraq. Until a few weeks ago, Lieberman prided himself on being the president's leading Democratic ally in touting the war... Lamont represents a new moral center in American politics — a challenge to the failed status quo and a demand for a new
direction that a growing majority of Americans are searching for."

Forget about Lieberman and forget about BushCheneyRove. That is the past-- a dark, dark tragic chapter in American history, barreling towards a miserable denouement. Ned represents a new moral order that will "bring an end to the disastrous occupation in Iraq and bring the troops home with honor; change priorities to invest in our schools, in universal pre-kindergarten, in modern infrastructure; champion affordable national health care for all." To reactionaries like Gerstein, Lieberman, the DLC crowd and their Republican mirror images, these are radical and dangerous concepts. The most Americans, they are very mainstream and all that lies in their way are dead weight boulders: Bush, Lieberman, Santorum, Frist, Cheney... detritus that will soon be removed from the American political landscape.

Bill Clinton nearly pulled Lieberman's disastrous and doomed campaign out of the muck it had sunk into. He energized many Connecticut Democrats who hadn't been paying any attention to the primary and his assistance brought Lieberman the electoral respectability that encouraged his ego-driven, Republican financed "independent" soreloser campaign. And Clinton now admits the only thing that caused him to campaign for Lieberman was their 35 year friendship. That friendship is probably going to end now as Clinton gears up to support Ned.

Yesterday President Clinton was singing a song that was not sweet music to Lieberman and his Rovian Gerstein mini-me: "There were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was, 'I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction.' His position is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position, which was, 'Does it matter if they have weapons? None of this matters... This is a big, important priority, and 9/11 gives us the way of attacking and deposing Saddam.'" Clinton made it clear in his interview that the Lieberman-Cheney-Coulter position is an out-and-out lie and that a vote for Lamont was not, as the Lieberman Republicans insist, a vote against the country's security.

The Center For American Progress has the video of Clinton explaining how Lieberman's position on the war is not a Democratic Party position but a Republican position.