I’m of the belief – like others that the Democrats are about to relive 1968 in 2008, and when it happens they will have to think back to Joe Lieberman. You will remember in 1968 that the antiwar left chose Hubert Humphrey to run against Nixon and well, the rest is history.
Do you think they’ve learned from their past mistakes? Doubtful.
“If Lieberman loses, it will not even be because he supported the war. Almost every leading Democratic politician and foreign policymaker, and many a liberal columnist, supported the war. Nor will he lose because he opposes withdrawing troops from Iraq this year. Most top Democratic policymakers agree that early withdrawal would be a mistake. Nor, finally, is it because he has been too chummy with President Bush. Lieberman has offered his share of criticism of the administration’s handling of the Iraq war and of many other administration policies.
No, Lieberman’s sin is of a different order. Lieberman stands condemned today because he didn’t recant. He didn’t say he was wrong. He didn’t turn on his former allies and condemn them. He didn’t claim to be the victim of a hoax. He didn’t try to pretend that he never supported the war in the first place. He didn’t claim to be led into support for the war by a group of writers and intellectuals whom he can now denounce. He didn’t go through a public show of agonizing and phony soul-baring and apologizing in the hopes of resuscitating his reputation, as have some noted “public intellectuals.”
Lamont has already shown his character earlier this week – coward, for failing to come out and denounce the racist bigotry of his supporters. If the people of Connecticut elect him, they get what they deserve – another “say anything politician”, God help them.
But as others are saying “As goes Lieberman so goes 2008″, I say, “Have at it!”, I welcome it. They were wrong in 1968 and 2004 and everytime they try to run on their antiwar cut and run. It’s never going to sell in a Country founded on the fight for freedom, not the cowardness under fire, that people like Lamont are.
On the ’68 comparison Right Wing Nut observes:
“Reminds me of 1968 – hippiedom was at its height, universities and big cities were torn asunder by riots, and the unpopular Vietnam War continued to drag on with thousands dying on an annual basis. The Democrats, fully in thrall to that decade’s anti-war left, nominated Hubert H. Humphry as their Presidential candidate. The election would go to the Democrats; it was a shoe-in, right?
America instead turned to one Richard M. Nixon instead, much to the amazement of the intellectual elite (and media) of the time. And he got us out of ‘Nam, went to China, stood up to the Russians, and actually brokered the peace that followed the Yom Kipper war in 1973 (after, of course, his re-election in ’72). In a crisis, America knew that strength, not appeasment and navel-gazing, was what was needed to successful move the nation forward.”
Yep, have at it.
More at AJ Strata.
No Response
Beto Ochoa
August 6th, 2006 at 10:38 am
1I was telling a co-worker last week that the hard left today resembles the radicals from 1968. The big difference is, in 1968 the Democrat Party (the establishment) as a whole was the boogy man and it was the Communist party, et al, that were in vogue. Now the communists and Stalinists have honed and obfuscated their image and representation within the Democrat(ic) party. Doesn’t anyone else remember when the Democrat party was not called the Democratic party? When did we become Ics? Sorry if I digress. As to Lieberman, if it is so courageous and patriotic to dissent why is his dissent from the party line seen as betrayal? Dissent is okay as long as it’s a particular dissent?
Merry Whitney
August 6th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
2An essential difference between the 1960′s radicals and the current gaggle of miscreants, is that the 1960′s bunch at least had sense(s) of humor.
I believed then, and have seen nothing in the interim to change that belief, that it was not the ideology of the 1960′s – 1970′s conservatives that kept us behind in the popularity contest part of the culture war, it was the tight-lipped, sour-faced image, juxtaposed next to the “they may be wrong, but they’re fun” contrast.
The Reagan era helped flip that coin (does anyone else remember when a Doonesbury cartoon printed an inner-sanctum White House telephone number, and a Reagan aide countered with an answering machine message that provided phone numbers for the cartoon’s author, his agent, and his syndicate management?)
The vast majority of Americans are just not tuned in to political ideology. And most of us can relate better to those who make us laugh and feel good, than to those who bang the table and hurl invective.
Look at who’s been doing most of which since about 1994 or so.
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