I'm not sure I have much (anything?) to add to the subject of "Why Holy Joe Must Go." I do have a certain history of Lieberman-watching, though, and running down the issues, I can't find anyplace where the case for returning His Holiness to the Senate makes sense.
Here's my quick rundown:
The war issue
Finally some of the media seem to be noticing that Ned Lamont's challenge
isn't a single-issue one. Nevertheless, let's pretend for just a moment that the opposition to Holy Joe is truly a matter of "just one issue," the war in Iraq. (Let's even forget the war in Afghanistan,
for just this moment.)
Just one issue??? The mind boggles.
On the most mundane level, we can't even begin to calculate the real-dollar cost of this debacle, in part because addressing it is one of the very few things that can actually get you fired in this administration, as that poor schlepp Larry Lindsey learned. But the dollar cost is almost the least of it when you contemplate the stupefying panoply of mayhem—death, maiming and destruction of every kind at every level, at home and abroad—which we've inflicted on ourselves as well as everyone and everything in our path.
At this point in time,
on just this one issue, I don't see how any serious voter, given the existence of any remotely reasonable alternative, could even
consider voting for a man who continues to serve as an unapologetic cheerleader for this unmitigated catastrophe. And Ned Lamont strikes me as an altogether reasonable alternative.
The "litmus test" issue
But of course it's
not a matter of "just one issue." And whenever you hear yet another of those "party insider" apologists claim that it is, don't you have to pause to wonder whether he/she is a liar or an imbecile? (Hey, "lying imbecile" is certainly not out of the question.)
On a whole host of issues, His Holiness has been shamelessly up-frontly in cahoots with the Bush forces, affording a disastrous cover of "bipartisanship" to the most savagely reactionary, exclusionary and authoritarian presidency in the history of the republic. On other issues he has simply gone undercover, trusting to old-style congressional flimflam to conceal his collusion. As in the case of the Alioto Supreme Court nomination, when our Joe relied on the old trick of voting "wrong" when it mattered (the cloture vote, the last opportunity to derail the nomination) and then—for the record—voting "right" when it no longer mattered.
All too often during the Bush presidency, when Democrats have needed to stand up and be counted, you could count on His Holiness to be MIA. Will Ned Lamont do better? If I were a Connecticut voter, I couldn't see any reason not to want to find out.
Before we leave the bogus "litmus test" issue, I have another problem with it—namely,
the kind of people who've raised it:
•
out-and-out right-wingers. (Who gives the tiniest damn what, say, David Brooks thinks?)
•
fake-"centrist" Democrats, who are really covert right-wingers. (I cringe every time I hear that lethal phrase "centrist Democrats." After all, considering that we have a "Left" that's barely left of center and a "Right" that's voyaged so far rightward as to be in imminent danger of falling over the edge of its flat earth, the process of triangulating the "Center" lands you, oh, ever so slightly to the left of the Rev. Pat Robertson.)
Now, with regard to both of these groups, apart from their having pretty much zero political or philosophical credibility,
these people apply political litmus tests at every opportunity to people they suspect of being . . . well, too far to the left of Pat Robertson.
The Jewish issueI had the feeling that Howie was cutting me some slack the other day when he wrote that he didn't know of a single person who was happy about presidential candidate Al Gore's choice of His Holiness as his running mate in 2000. Let me confess:
I kind of was.
In my defense, I can only say that I thought I knew our Joe from his frequent appearances on Don Imus's radio show. On
Imus in the Morning, he came across as a solidly liberal, commonsensical, wise bastion of Democratic values. Who knew that it was an act? I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't.
All of this became clearer once mass psychosis set in with the dawn of the unelected Bush presidency, especially as subsequently confounded and compounded by 9/11. Our Joe, having covered his ass by running for his Senate seat as well as for vice president, started getting ideas that he could be "somebody." Far from cringing in the face of the culture of right-wing extremism and imperial power being promoted by the people pulling George W. Bush's strings, His Holiness seems to have found a public home.
(Something similar was happening with Imus. The man who had always taken such glee in puncturing pretentious gasbags, who had long been the first to tell us that he was exactly the same "A-hole" off the air that we heard on it, began taking himself
seriously—as a pretentious right-wing gasbag.)
But to return to my age of innocence, in 2000, I confess, the fact that Wise Old Joe was Jewish made me, well,
proud. I guess I really believe that this country is most unlikely
ever to have a Jewish president, and a Jewish
vice president seemed almost as unlikely in my lifetime.
Of course, I would never support a candidate simply
because he/she is Jewish. By now it should be clear that His Holiness is much closer philosophically to all those pernicious Jewish neocons—the likes of Dickie Perle, Paul Wolfshit and Dougie Feith—who have done so much to disgrace their heritage. Anyone who esteems traditional Jewish values can only be appalled. And I should add that with "friends" like this, Israel truly doesn't need enemies.
The morality issueYet another Joe-related confession: Because I bought the "wise old Joe" act, I was slow to recognize how dangerous His Holiness's moralistic streak is. As a matter of fact, I had some sympathy for some of the fights he picked. It seemed and seems to me that anyone who doesn't see serious rot in American popular culture, who doesn't see, for example, that popular music is promoting a host of social pathologies, just isn't paying attention.
However, Holy Joe and his like-minded cronies have shown us with crystal clarity that there is indeed one thing that's vastly worse, and that is allowing a bunch of narrow-minded busybodies like Lynne Cheney and "Lucky Bill" Bennett and Tipper Gore and His Holiness hisself to appoint themselves public censors, guardians of the public morality.
In addition, now that I'm aware of His Holiness's political history, going back to the beginning of his career, as a corporate whore for sale to every special interest that can put together the right dollar package, I listen with astonishment and rage to, say, his brimstone-spewing semon about how his old friend Bill Clinton had disgraced the presidency. In retrospect, we can see that His Holiness was rehearsing his future public collusion with the most sinister forces in our political life.
And where our Bill is concerned, since I'm already in confessional mode, let me confess that if I were the former president and my old "pal" Joe sent out a whining SOS, I would do two things:
• first, bust a gut laughing,
• and then, say unto him a hearty "Fuck you!"
The "three-term incumbent" issueThis is an argument so ridiculous that it wouldn't even be worth raising if it didn't touch on a related one that matters quite a lot to me: the issue of "saviors" in politics.
One of these days I want to talk about this whole phenomenon. It's a regular election-cycle ritual. Some schmo we know very little about emerges and, possessing a certain amount of magnetism (or perhaps a vaguely magnetic résumé) and not much else except his unfamiliarity, is anointed as the One Who Will Lead Us Out of the Wilderness. Eventually—sometimes sooner, sometimes later—it's discovered that no, he doesn't walk on water, and he becomes a bum, irrespective of any
virtues the poor devil may have.
Well, there aren't many saviors out there, and maybe not even that many bums. The thing is, though, that until we really get to know something
real about a political figure, we have no way of separating the good from the bad. That doesn't mean we cynically reject every newcomer to the political game. The only thing I can think of to do is to pay the closest attention possible and to support the people who offer the most hope, and then hope for the best. Some of them will disappoint us quickly, and others will disappoint us eventually, but some of them may go on to distinguished careers of public service.
Isn't it obvious, however, that under this plan, once elected officials show themselves to be bums, we have to be able to throw the bums out? In fact, isn't it an absolute
requirement of the system? Where the system is breaking down most severely is precisely in the area of
failure to throw the bums out as needed. The fact that Holy Joe has oozed his way through three full terms in the Senate is an argument for getting him the hell out, not for returning him.
Has Ned Lamont had a career of such blinding incandescence that he deserves to be ritually anointed by unanimous acclaim as a U.S. senator? I don't suppose so, but that doesn't mean he isn't qualified—and he isn't presenting himself as a "savior." He stepped into the breach when the times demanded that someone do so. And in fact he's had a career of solid real-world accomplishment that clearly qualifies him to take part in Senate deliberations.
In fact, I see no reason
not to think that Ned will elevate the quality of those deliberations. When you look at the dozen or so kookiest Republicans actually
serving in the Senate now, he seems like a world-class prospect. (Okay, that's not much of a standard, but I hope you get what I mean.)
And when you consider the alternative, well, I simply don't
see any alternative. Holy Joe keeps insisting, belatedly, that he
is too a "real" Democrat. Oh, good grief!
