No Joe-Mentum?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006 9:46 AM

Can the bloggers knock off Joe Lieberman?

That's an exaggeration, of course -- one of my specialties, just to force you to read what follows -- but the Connecticut Democrat is in a bit of trouble.

Even if blogging had never been invented, Lieberman's staunch support for the war would have him in hot water with the antiwar wing of his party, which is backing the previously obscure Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary in early August. But the hostility of lefty bloggers to just about everything Lieberman stands for -- he is almost as reviled as George W. Bush in some quarters -- makes for an interesting case study.

Can an online mobilization make a difference in a low-turnout primary?

No matter what happens, the senator's travails tell you something about how much the political ground has shifted. Here he was, one Supreme Court justice away from becoming vice president after the 2000 election, and then considered to be a strong candidate for the White House in 2004. (His campaign actually went nowhere, in perhaps an early indication of the difficulties facing a moderate-to-conservative Democrat in a liberal party.)

But in Connecticut, where he's so well known, Lieberman should win in a walk.

Enter the bloggers. Markos Moulitsas, better known as Kos, actually appears in a TV ad for Lamont. So this really is shaping up as a test of sorts.

Slate's John Dickerson kicks it off with a rather colorful quote:

"Centrist Democrats are fretting about the hostile takeover from the left. 'You have a senator being punished by left-wing bloggers and activists who seek to kill him and bring his head to Washington on a pike to show all those centrists and moderates throughout the country who would wander from the liberal dogmatic line,' says former Connecticut state Democratic Party Chairman John Droney. . . .

"While bloggers have had meager success backing candidates so far, what frightens Lieberman's allies--and makes the race worth watching--is their success as giant-killers, taking down Dan Rather and Trent Lott. The August primary date will favor committed activists willing to interrupt their summer vacations, just the kind of die-hard liberals who have always had issues with the moderate Lieberman. Beneath the placid surface of the Sunday fund-raiser, that passion was easy to find. 'Can you write 'weasel' in your magazine?' responded voter Charlotte Lazor when I asked for her views about Lieberman. Others offered 'sycophant,' 'sanctimonious,' and 'Benedict Arnold' to describe their junior senator.

"Lieberman's sins . . . [include] appearing (and smiling) on the Fox News Channel after Kerry lost the presidential election in 2004. But there is no bigger liability than his support of the Iraq war."

The latest Kos post:

"Man, is there a day that Lieberman doesn't give me an excuse to blog about his b.s.? Remember how all of last week Ned Lamont was too much of a Republican? Voted with Republicans 80 percent of the time as a Greenwich town selectman? (Those pitched partisan battles over school crossing sign placements were legendary . . . )

"Well, that was last week's attack. A new week begets a new rationale for justifying six more years of Joementum.

" ' I've been really fed up by the rigid partisanship in Washington, not just about the war,' Lieberman told reporters later. Of Lamont, he said, 'Part of his attacks on me are that I haven't been partisan enough, haven't been a polarizer enough .'

"Lamont's response is a grand slam:

" ' Lamont said Lieberman's comments were surprising, considering that Lieberman previously has attacked him as being too cozy with Republicans while Lamont was a local official in Greenwich. 'He's got to be making up his mind .' . . .

"Don't you get the sense that Lieberman is grasping at straws, simply flinging mud against the wall to see what sticks?

"He's an 18-year Senator. Why doesn't he simply justify his existence by pointing to his record? That's what I'd do if I were an 18-year incumbent."

The Iraq war: Now new and improved as a campaign issue:

"Just a few weeks ago, some Republicans were openly fretting about the war in Iraq and its effect on their re-election prospects, with particularly vulnerable lawmakers worried that its growing unpopularity was becoming a drag on their campaigns," says the New York Times .

Now why would they think that?

"But there was little sign of such nervousness on Wednesday as Republican after Republican took to the Senate floor to offer an unambiguous embrace of the Iraq war and to portray Democrats as advocates of an overly hasty withdrawal that would have grave consequences for the security of the United States. Like their counterparts in the House last week, they accused Democrats of espousing 'retreat and defeatism.' "

Hey, it rhymes, just like cut and run!

The horrible torture of those two American soldiers in Iraq draws this response from National Review's David Frum :

"There will alas be no shortage of people ready to suggest that American errors and abuses in the treatment of detainees somehow caused/mitigates/compares with the torture, mutilation, and beheading of captured US service personnel. Let me raise just one of dozens of possible responses to such people:

"Much that happens in Iraq seems senseless, but the kind of terrorism practised by al Qaeda in Iraq is anything but. It is profoundly rational, purposeful, and goal-directed. They do not torture, mutilate, and behead because they are enraged by some piece of propaganda they happened to hear on al-Jazeera the day before. Terrorism is a political method, adopted in pursuit of political ends. Those ends were selected - and the methods chosen - long before anybody had ever heard of Guantanamo as anything other than a sleepy naval station."

Yesterday we brought you the NYT's Dems-are-steamed-at-Kerry piece. Now American Prospect's Greg Sargent declares the story "quite a piece of work. First it bungles a key fact about John Kerry:

" Mr. Kerry now describes the war in Iraq as a mistake, even though he once supported it.

"Actually, Kerry repeatedly described the war as a mistake during the 2004 campaign. What really happened was that he 'supported' the President's request for the authorization to use force in Iraq if the President deemed it necessary. Then Kerry repeatedly criticized the President's use of that authorization to invade the way he did as a mistake. Is it too much to ask from The Times that they make this not-terribly-complex distinction? . . .

"Interviews 'suggest' a frustration; his 'peers' say he's political, though no 'peer' is quoted saying so, even anonymously. Meanwhile, the piece also adds high up in the story that Kerry's position leaves Dems 'open to Republican taunts that they are `cutting and running' in Iraq' without letting any Dem rebut that argument until the end of the piece. And of course the story features an obligatory reference to Kerry's 'I was for it before I was against it' campaign gaffe.

"This is really cheap stuff -- thinly sourced, factually questionable and bordering on snide -- and it's truly surprising that it got past any Times editor."

For good measure, Sargent adds:

"In their piece on Dem division, The Washington Post does The Times one better, literally reprinting a GOP press release: 'GOP leaders took obvious pleasure in the Democrats' disarray, issuing a stream of press releases with headlines such as, 'Democrats Divided On The Meaning Of Their Own Amendments.' ''

Um, is citing the propaganda that one side is putting out the same as embracing that propaganda?

Andrew Sullivan has found a Bush Cabinet member he likes:

"Last week was the best for President Bush since his re-election. That isn't saying much, of course. His second term has been one long slide into political and military misery. But one person seemed particularly ebullient last week; and there are signs she has some reason to be.

"I'm referring to secretary of state Condi Rice, whose long, quiet war of attrition against the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis of incompetence has been showing some rare, stray glimmers of success.

"I don't want to go overboard. Nobody should underestimate Cheney's ruthlessness or Rumsfeld's bureaucratic skills. They're still entrenched and are biding their time. But they have temporarily lost the Iran debate. The switch towards a policy of agreeing to direct negotiations under strict conditions was a victory for Rice and Merkel and Blair."

Philly Inquirer blogger Dick Polman weighs in against stenography:

"After I poked at the Associated Press for failing to fact-check Dick Cheney and thereby allow him to utter a demonstrably false remark, somebody named Anonymous complained that 'the AP article was a straight news story. Straight news stories are supposed to report facts and what was said. Separate analysis or commentary articles would then debate the merits of what Cheney said. That's journalism 101.'

"I disagree. Anonymous tell us that 'straight news are supposed to report facts and what was said,' but, under that outmoded definition, journalists are mere stenographers, copying down whatever a politician wants to say, and passing it along to readers who often lack the time to determine whether the remarks were true. Under that so-called 'objectivity' standard, a politician is free to dissemble without being challenged. I don't feel that we should be content with passing along misinformation in 'straight' stories. The reader deserves a full context, and that means politicians should be fact-checked -- a job that's relatively quick and easy to do, in the Google era. Providing accurate factual context is not 'commentary.' It's what 'straight' reporting should be about."

I would have thought the American Library Association was a polite and nonpartisan organization. Apparently, according to this Michelle Malkin post, I am wrong:

"First Lady Laura Bush, who served as a public school teacher and librarian in the Houston, Dallas and Austin school systems, is scheduled to speak to the American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference in New Orleans next week.

"The First Lady isn't planning to speak about anything political. The non-controversial topic of her panel: 'School Libraries Work: Rebuilding for Learning' in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Nevertheless, her mere scheduled presence has moonbat activists within the ALA steaming. On a library e-mail list publicized on the SHUSH blog this week, ALA councilor-at-large Mark Rosenzweig's rant must be quoted at length to be believed:

"I must, with the weariness and frustration that accompanies the anticipated yet still painful, hereby protest that this event turns our conference into a grand political photo-op for the administration of President George W. Bush, whose administration bears such a heavy responsibility for, among other things of which I will remind you, the debacle of the response to Hurricane Katrina and for its on-going aftermath.

"Mrs. Bush is anachronistically called the 'First Lady,' with the fake gentility which is the hallmark of our provincial cult of the Presidency, but what she is, in [political] fact, regardless of her surfeit of -- to me -- rather cloying charm and her much publicized attachment to libraries as the no-political-downside way of demonstrating Bush Administration largesse, is the First Supporter of President Bush and one his most valuable public relations assets . . . she supports virtually every policy of her husband's administration -- tax cuts for the rich, the destruction of social security and Medicare, the privatization of public lands, the hand-outs to corporations, the support for the plundering by Big Oil, the covering for the abuses of the [pharmaceutical] industry, the invasion and occupation of Iraq (and the lies that were told to enable it), the blockade of Cuba and the threats to Latin America, the nuclear sabre-rattling, the USA Patriot Act, covert domestic surveillance, the attacks on the Bill of Rights and the entire Constitution, the flaunting of international law, and, let's not forget, 'Gitmo' and Abu Ghraib and Haditha . . . .

"Welcome to the 21st century librarian: book-smart, reality-stupid, Bush-deranged bigots. Let's hope the First Lady's security detail comes prepared. You never know what these tolerant people will throw."

I bet they never complained about Hillary Clinton.

The people of Bridgeport, Conn., just can't win. Their last mayor is now in jail on bribery and corruption charges; the current occupant just disclosed that he has been using cocaine and alcohol since taking office. He says he is "appalled by some of my recent statements." Right.

Many conservatives are saying good riddance, but Fox commentator Susan Estrich comes to Dan Rather's defense:

"Shame on CBS for treating Dan Rather so badly. In a business that depends on loyalty, they've shown none. And what goes around may come around, if viewers are indeed watching.

"CBS has every right to replace Dan Rather in the anchor chair. That's their business, and it is a business. If they think Katie Couric can rate better, so be it. If they think an entirely new team will repair their relationship with the White House, so be it.

"But when people serve you loyally, you don't trash them, step all over them, treat them like dirt, then kick them out the door -- and expect your customers, consumers, your audience to look the other way, and keep watching. At least I hope we won't, once we make the connection.

"What is happening to Dan, unfortunately, is not so different from what happens to lots of people his age-- the difference being that for Dan, it is happening on a much more visible scale."

Estrich does say Rather made a bad mistake with Memogate, but adds:

"I met Dan Rather in 1987, when I took over the Dukakis campaign. He had always been one of my heroes. I knew he was smart as a whip, and knew politics, but I didn't know what kind of man he was. There were stories that he was tough. I was the first woman in a job like mine, and one of the youngest. He could have treated me like what I was: a kid. But he was unfailingly gracious, helpful, kind, a man of his word, old fashioned in the best sense of the word."