Quote of the day: In fairness, Mr. K, maybe Holy Joe wasn't lying--maybe he's really and truly clueless about the significance of this election

"The fact is that this is a one-letter election. D or R, that's all that matters."
--Paul Krugman, in his NYT column today, "One-Letter Politics"

What Krugman has to say about the election is probably more important than the issue of whether His Holiness Joe "Torquemada" Lieberman has been caught in yet another lie. After all, how hard is that? At this point Holy Joe probably can't keep track of all the lies himself. And as we've suggested in the head above, it's always possible that the Nutmeg State's answer to the Spanish Inquisition wasn't lying--that he's so utterly clueless about politics that he truly hasn't thought about whether the country would be better off if the Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections, as he claimed recently to the Hartford Courant.

In the end, though, we're even less inclined to believe His Holiness than Mr. Krugman was, and for an even more contemptible reason: his naked political self-interest. Holy Joe became a force to reckon with by losing the vice presidency in 2000 and then turning himself into the Senate's leading Democratic shill for the most virulently and violently right-wing administration in this country's history.

If the Democrats retake the House, party power shifts there and Holy Joe, assuming he retains his Senate seat, becomes pretty much irrelevant peddling his phony "bipartisanship." It's even worse for him if the Democrats retake the Senate as well, in which case--again assuming Connecticut voters are so foolish as to send him back to Washington as their senator--he goes back to being a big fat blob of nothing, albeit a blob of nothing retaining the seniority he's gotten the Senate Democratic leadership to agree to allow him to retain, even though of course he's running against the Democratic candidate for his seat.

The wild card is the case where Holy Joe's vote determines control of the Senate. If he doesn't switch parties in that case--the only one in which the Republicans are likely to want him--it will only be because he manages to extort more considerations out of the Democratic leadership to persuade him to stay in the fold.

Of course the neatest and most effective way to separate Clueless Joe from the significance of the election is for Connecticut voters to make an honest whore of him, by launching him officially on his new career as a full-time Washington lobbyist instead of the corporate bitch-for-hire he's made himself as a senator.

But to return to Krugman's argument about the the election's bottom-line significance:

October 16, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

One-Letter Politics
By PAUL KRUGMAN

In a recent interview with The Hartford Courant, Senator Joseph Lieberman said something that wasn't credible. When the newspaper asked him whether America would be better off if the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives next month, he replied, "Uh, I haven't thought about that enough to give an answer."

Why wasn't this a credible answer? Because anyone with the slightest interest in American politics--a group that obviously includes Mr. Lieberman--is waiting with bated breath to see how this election goes, and thinking a lot about the implications. If the Democrats gain control of either house, no matter how narrowly, the American political landscape will be transformed. If they fail, no matter how narrowly, it will be seen, correctly, as a great victory for the hard right.

The fact is that this is a one-letter election. D or R, that's all that matters.

It's hard to think of an election in which the personal qualities of the people running in a given district or state have mattered less. Given the stakes, voters who answer "yes" to the question Mr. Lieberman claims not to have thought about should think hard about voting for any Republican, no matter how appealing. Conversely, those who answer "no" should think hard about supporting any Democrat, no matter how much they like him or her.

There are two reasons why party control is everything in this election.

The first, lesser reason is the demonstrated ability of Republican Congressional leaders to keep their members in line, even those members who cultivate a reputation as moderates or mavericks. G.O.P. politicians sometimes make a show of independence, as Senator John McCain did in seeming to stand up to President Bush on torture. But in the end, they always give the White House what it wants: after getting a lot of good press for his principled stand, Mr. McCain signed on to a torture bill that in effect gave Mr. Bush a completely free hand.

And if the Republicans retain control of Congress, even if it's by just one seat in each house, Mr. Bush will retain that free hand. If they lose control of either house, the G.O.P. juggernaut will come to a shuddering halt.

Yet that's the less important reason this election is all about party control. The really important reason may be summed up in two words: subpoena power.

Even if the Democrats take both houses, they won't be able to accomplish much in the way of new legislation. They won't have the votes to stop Republican filibusters in the Senate, let alone to override presidential vetoes.

The only types of legislation the Democrats might be able to push through are overwhelmingly popular measures, such as an increase in the minimum wage, that Republicans don't want but probably wouldn't dare oppose in an open vote.

But while the Democrats won't gain the ability to pass laws, if they win they will gain the ability to carry out investigations, and the legal right to compel testimony.

The current Congress has shown no inclination to investigate the Bush administration. Last year The Boston Globe offered an illuminating comparison: when Bill Clinton was president, the House took 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether Mr. Clinton had used the White House Christmas list to identify possible Democratic donors. But in 2004 and 2005, a House committee took only 12 hours of testimony on the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

If the Democrats take control, that will change--and voters should think very hard about whether they want that change. Those who think it's a good idea to investigate, say, allegations of cronyism and corruption in Iraq contracting should be aware that any vote cast for a Republican makes Congressional investigations less likely. Those who believe that the administration should be left alone to do its job should be aware that any vote for a Democrat makes investigations more likely.

O.K., what about the Senate race in Connecticut, where Ned Lamont is the Democratic nominee, and Mr. Lieberman, who lost the Democratic primary, is running as an independent but promising to caucus with the Democrats if he wins? Is this a case where the man, not the party, is what matters? Only if you believe that Mr. Lieberman's promise not to switch parties is 100 percent credible.