Revenge of the Irate Moderates

[jducoeur]

Nice little opinion piece in the NY Times today, starting off:

The defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman at the hands of a little-known Connecticut businessman is bound to send a message to politicians of both parties that voters are angry and frustrated over the war in Iraq. The primary upset was not, however, a rebellion against the bipartisanship and centrism that Mr. Lieberman said he represented in the Senate. Instead, Connecticut Democrats were reacting to the way those concepts have been perverted by the Bush White House.

Good point. I suspect that what has sunk Lieberman (and I do suspect that he's sunk, his run as an independent notwithstanding) wasn't the fact that he voted for the war in Iraq, nor even so much the fact that he still defends it as necessary. It's the fact that he insists upon playing nice with people who are so clearly not interested in reciprocating. If the Bushies were even slightly bipartisan in reality, his approach would be diplomatic, but as things stand, it comes across as supine...