Recently, I’ve written several posts about the ideological chasm separating the left- and right-wings of the Democratic party:
The epicenter of the confrontation between the leftist and centrist factions of the party is the forthcoming Connecticut primary pitting Senator Joe Lieberman against upstart Ned Lamont.
Yesterday, the Connecticut Post noted that Ned Lamont is the great-grandson of former J.P. Morgan Chairman Thomas W. Lamont, and has an inherited net worth estimated a $90 million to $300 million. Given his pedigree and wealth, one would think that Ned would be an unlikely hero for the Left. However, in the eyes of the Left, his opposition to the Iraq war and thus to President Bush more than compensates for his silver-spoon-in the-mouth background. It should be pointed out that the other heroes of the Left—John Kerry and Al Gore—are wealthy. That the Left idealizes these members of the privileged “class” ranks near the top of the list of today’s ironies.
With this background, you’d think Lamont would be a Republican:
- After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1972, Lamont earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1976 and a master’s degree in public policy and management from the Yale School of Management in 1980. He then entered the cable television industry, managing the startup of Cablevision’s operation in Fairfield County. Four years later, Lamont founded Lamont Digital Systems, of which he is president and chairman. The company, which is privately held, is the builder and operator of advanced telecommunications networks for college campuses and residential communities, with over 150,000 subscribers.
In light of its vitriolic attack on Lieberman, it’s no exaggeration to say that the Left is intent on excommunicating him. In another, earlier era, he would be burned at the stake.
- At the Huffington Post, Cenk Uygur explains “Why We Hate Lieberman”: “We are not against Joe Lieberman because we are leftists who require ideological purity. We are against him because he aids and abets an out of control Republican Party . . . Lieberman knows that these are the same guys who have been unabashedly using 9/11 as a political tool. He knows these are the same guys who linked Iraq and 9/11 when there was absolutely no connection. He knows they campaign against gays, immigrants and anyone else they can focus people’s hatred on. He knows they have devolved into a party of misinformation, propaganda, ill-conceived wars and religious zealotry—and he still loves them. He doesn’t just vote with Republicans, he relishes it. He talks like them, he walks like them, he is them . . . He shares an ideology, a mind-set and a worldview that sets him apart from the rest of us, the reality-based community. He isn’t coerced or intimated by the Republicans like some of the other Democrats. He is part of the apparatus of coercion and intimidation. .”
- Some less-than-blatant anti-Semitism gets thrown into the mix by one of Uygur’s commenters: “Someone should ask Lieberman – would he be so pro-war in Iraq and Iran, if not for his Israel sympathies. It is WRONG when American foreign policy is hijacked to serve the interests of a third country. The more so when it is done in stealth.” Simiarly, another commenter says “Lieberman is a Zionist Neo-Con. This is a perfect match for the War Criminals who have stolen the White House(twice).” A third says “the primary reason for his hawk votes is that he’s Jewish. No more, no less.”
Hullabloo says “Joe Lieberman actively undermines the Democratic Party, to its detriment and for his own purposes. He could support the Iraq war, for instance, without lecturing those of us who are opposed to it from the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal for gawd’s sake! . . . Lieberman has taken that unacceptable position over and over again during the last decade or so, making a fetish out his “independence” which has manifested itself as GOP useful idiot time and again. He often “triangulates” against rank and file Democrats, making common cause with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. He uses liberals as his favorite foils happily helping the Republicans to demonize half of his party.”
Given enough time, I could list many more anti-Lieberman diatribes. If the left-wing has it way, the Demcrats will be down-sizing its tent in the name of ideological purity. If they win this August, the desertion of moderate Democrats will set the stage for Republican victories in 2006 and 2008.
This Lamont-Lieberman contest reminds me of a recent debate between Iraq vet and would-be Congressional Democrat Paul Hackett and the father of Lt. Ehren Watada on Fox News (currently available at the Expose the Left video blog). It fits nicely in Marc’s The War Between the Democrats series.
Not Fox News but MSN Hardball, with that journalistic hottie Norah O’Donnell hosting. I sometimes watch her reporting with the sound off. Is that wrong?
tom p- I do the same with fox and friends.
I watched the lamont lieberman debate. I don’t think lamont really has what it takes to be a candidate. lieberman was much smoother. that said, lamont can give lieberman a kick in the butt to let him know the neo con era is over. I reject the notion that being against war makes one more “left” or far left. It could just as easily be interpretted as more libertarian and it often is. The article from The Nation that mark posted her by katrina what’s her name was very libertarian.
and democrats being anti wealth is another straw man but we’ll save that for later.
also, the same supposedly anti semetic far left supports russ feigold, listens to al franken, and watches Jon Stewart.
Lester, again in your efforts to support a weak and intellectually inconsistent ideology, you lose the greater picture. Lefties support Jon Stewart, Russ Feingold and Al Franken because they further the narrative that they are pushing. But, as with a party/group of people who’s worldview is based on identity politics, those that step outside the rank and file become “traitors.” When a “traitor,” who was once a member of a protected minority class “defects,” they are hurled the most horrible and racist of epithets by those who claim to the “tolerant” ones (See Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Michael Steele and Joe Lieberman).
Contrast that with this: many of those on the far right wing of the Republican Party actively tried to defeat the more liberal Arlen Spector in his last primary run, but their arguments with him were ideological and didn’t denegrate into baseless bad faith arguments rooted in his Jewish background.
Sorry, the far Left of the Democratic Party demands ideological purity that will not tolerate anyone that steps out from underneath its umbrella. It is a totalitarian ideology that responds with absolute and ruthless viciousness each time someone dares to think for themselves.
As to your neo-con comment, we’ll see if the neo-con era is over. Rudy Giuliani might be your next President if those on the Left can purify out enough of the moderates in in the Democratic party.
This is the whole point of Marc’s posts (Marc, correct me if I am wrong): a minority within the Democratic party is trying to dictate and set the ideology that most of its members don’t subscribe to. It has the potential to sever the party making two weaker parties that (and I’m extrapolating here) will have some serious difficulties getting themselves back into office anytime soon (especially the Presidency).
guliani is a neo con? thats news to me. I don’t remember reading any essays by him in The Weekly Standard advocating war as a solution to every problem and pretending to be able to predict the future.
mark does what all PC police do, he fishes for something he can construe as bigotry then uses that to label ALL of a certain persuasion a bigot. here it’s a COMMENT by a random poster. who’s making the scary and previously unheard point that lieberman may be supporting the Iraq war because of his perceived (by the poster)support for zionism. wow. I’ve never thought of that before. It’s a rational deduction considering how much the israel lobby was behind Bush on this war. I have no idea if it’s true.
and again, being anti war doesn’t make someone “far left” most people in this country are against this war and were from the start. If you ask me it’s lieberman and the neo cons who are far left with their trotsky-ite perpetual revolution aka the war on terror and their goals of empire.
TF6S,
Your surmise regarding the intention of my posts is right on the money. Like any fervent minority (I think and hope that they represent less than half of the Democrats), the left-wing Democrats speak louder and with more passion than the party’s more centrist members. They are responsible for the image of their party.
In an obviously less extreme fashion, the Democrats bear a similarity to the Muslims. The physically-violent jihadists and the verbally-violent Islamists are responsible for the image of Muslims. Their actions and words drown out those of the “moderate” Muslims (such as they are), and they intimidate their less extreme coreligionists, who they consider to be apostates. To the left-wing Democrats, Lieberman is an apostate. At least the worst that can happen to him is to be driven from office, rather than being murdered in the name of an ideology.
Lester, please cite the poll taken where the majority of Americans claim they are against the war on terror and were from the start.
Secondly, I’ll let Marc defend himself, but from my point of view, your charge that Marc was trying to paint all of those of a certain persuation as bigots is absurd. Based on my point above, and Marc’s follow-up comment, what we are discussing is a vitriolic, and ofter race-baiting tactic used by a minority within the Democratic party to influence political change. Specifically Marc is trying isolate a feisty minority movement within the Democratic party, specifically to prove that there are many in the Democratic Party that remain committed to the cause of classical liberalism.
Speaking for myself, I believe a strong Democratic Party is essential for the success of this country. I find it disturbing that a angry minority is in danger of destroying that party not due to the will or conviction of most mainstream Democrats, but by the fear of retribution against them from those who have a long history of demonizing and defaming those that step out of line.
Again, see my examples above are just a handful of examples of what this movement will do to you if you dare step out of line.
Lastly, I didn’t know that credentials in the neo-con school of worldview was contigent upon being published in Weekly Standard, but even without that, Giulianni has repeatedly been outspoken about the need for militarily initiated intervention in the Middle East against a violent form of Islam supported by totalitarian regimes as the beginning of the solution towards increasing security for not only the U.S., but for the West.
tf6s- i mean against the war in iraq. there is no “war on terror” that’s just a rheorical flourish one of bush’s speechwriters came up with. There is no “axis of evil” either.
okay, so democrats aren’t bigots, just the ones who oppose a candidate who votes with the other side on the biggest issue of the day.
Mussolini would be proud of the democrats, as would his german cousin. Why does it always come down to race with these bigots?
fester- seriously man. EXCELLENT point. who knew mussolini had a german cousin!
Two points. TF6S, a strong Democratic Party isn’t essential for the success of our country. A strong two-party system is. It appears to me that the Democrats are going to go the way of the Whigs. I would expect that the sane Democrats who are aghast at what the wacko socialists are doing to their party might join with some of the “moderate” RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) to form a center-left party that would occupy something of the position the Democratic Party did before 1970. The Republicans would then become a more clearly conservative party rather than the confusing amalgam it is today. The Democratic socialists won’t be a national party at all, really.
Second point. Lester, your ability to ignore reality is truly astonishing. No axis of evil? One down from the axis, and the other two the biggest dangers the world faces today. Nope, nothing there.
Doug,
I don’t think the sane Democrats will form a new party and give up the party brand-recognition. I think a scenario, a la the emergence of the New Labour in Thatcherite Britain, is a more likely possibility. The Kossacks would probably follow the Lib Dem model. If this happens, I just hope the Republicans don’t decline as badly as the Tories.
Tom
My point is, the sane Democrats may not have a choice. Either they’re dragged down with the moonbats increasingly running the Democratic show, or they split and form the “New Democratic” Party. The moonbats have no reason to do that, as they’re winning.
And I don’t think the Republicans can decline as badly as the Tories in England; the Republicans (to the extent they follow the conservative principles they usually put in their platforms) represent a distinctly different concept of how to organize and manage our country. The English Tories always seemed (to me at least) to be essentially in agreement with Labour but unhappy that they weren’t running things. Not conservative in the American sense. Perhaps center-left by our definitions, but dispeptic.
is it not the height of arrogance for republicans to think they can bully democrats into nominating their (the republicans) choice for the senate? i reminds me of the old joke about the mosquito floating down the river with a hard on saying “raise the bridge!”
Lester, Lester, Lester…you just don’t get it, and I doubt you ever will. We’re not trying to bully Democrats into nominating anyone. Go ahead, nominate the looney folks you’re intent on putting up. They’ll lose horribly and you’ll complain yet again about how the election was somehow stolen from you.
What we’re trying to do is ensure two parties that aren’t insane and that can be trusted not to destroy the country if they get into power. The Democrats seem to be working on falling short of those criteria at the moment…
what do you know? look at the guy you elected president!
russ feingold is loony? Wesley Clarke? Yeah what a couple of nuts. Not like Katherine Harris or ted Stevens.
here’s my point: If you ask democrats who the republicans should run they’ll say “john mcain”. Now, I haven’t met many republicans who give that answer. they usually say Condi rice, Ton Tancredo or George Allen. So perspective is very imporant here.
Um, yes, Russ Feingold and Wesley Clarke are pretty much looney. Feingold co-authored and is apparently proud of the McCain-Feingold bill which was and is incredibly unconstitutional on the face of it. (I don’t care what the Supreme Court said, I can read plain English as well as the next guy.) Clarke is just crazy.
But you make my point for me. You list the Democrats’ pick for the Republican presidential nominee in ‘08 and rightly realize that almost no Republican wants him. But you seem to think that we want the Democrats to nominate someone we find marginally less offensive than the rest of the Democratic candidates. Wrong! We want you to go full-force, barking moonbat nuts and pick the farthest left person you can find! Come on, you can do it! We have confidence in your lunacy.
what’s crazy about clarke? and I hardly call mcain feingold “looney” it might be wrong in your opinion but looney? What does that make Katherine Harris?
How funny was it to see clarke talking down to his underling ollie north on hannity and colmes a few weeks ago? “yeah ollie, um you wish you could be me, but you suck so drop and give me ten boy!”
Read At War with Himself, by Andrew Sullivan in The New Republic from November of ‘03. He’s a loon. Feingold is proud of subverting the First Amendment. He’s a loon. You may not like Ollie North, but he was and is a stand-up Marine, not trying to cover his own ass all the time but trying to do what’s right as he sees it.
i’m not a big andy sullivan fan. believe it or not