This whole thing is so freaking ridiculous. This guy has been on the loose for months now, but despite all of the taxpayer money, and manpower the apparently incompetent NYS Troopers still can’t find him? I don’t want my money going to this any longer, but there’s a part of me that wants Bucky to stay on the loose, just to prove the incompetence of our State Police System.
Well, at least the search has moved up to Niagara County for a while, and is out of my backyard. Everyone down here was sick of dealing with the rude state troopers that had created a police state out of our tranquil county.
In his column yesterday, entitled “Taliban Democrats”, Cal Thomas makes an interesting point about Lieberman’s defeat, and what it means for the Democratic Party, and our political system in general. According to Thomas,
The narrow primary defeat of veteran senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut’s Democratic primary is more than a loss for one man. It is a loss for his party and for the country. It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing.
At first “Taliban wing” seemed a little harsh–hey, I’m no fan of the Democrats, but “Taliban”?–but, as Thomas explains,
They used to be “San Francisco Democrats,” a phrase coined by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick to describe the party’s 1984 convention. But they have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to “kill” one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party’s kook fringe.
As Thomas explains, the concerted effort in the Democratic Party to bring down Lieberman for supporting the war in Iraq shows that the Democrats have finally accomplished something they’ve been working on for years–they’ve finally brought their fringes of their party into the “mainstream”–effectively killing the Democratic Party of old simply because one of their own wasn’t always willing to conform.
His detractors, who brought him down in the primary with a one-issue, inexperienced and unqualified candidate, Ned Lamont, hate President Bush so much that their judgment has been distorted. Former Bill Clinton aide Lanny Davis, in a recent column for The Wall Street Journal titled “Liberal McCarthyism,” printed a sample of the incendiary rhetoric directed toward Lieberman. There is thinly-veiled anti-Semitism (”As everybody knows, Jews ONLY care about the welfare of other JewsŠ” posted on Daily Kos); irrationality (”Joe Lieberman is a racist and a religious bigot.” Daily Kos) and personal attack (”Lieberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife’s name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover.” Posted on the Huffington Post blog).
It didn’t matter that Lieberman, whose wife’s name, by the way, is Hadassah, ran as the vice presidential candidate with Al Gore in 2000, or that he has voted against most of President Bush’s domestic agenda. The Taliban wing of the Democratic Party cannot countenance any “heretics” who do not toe their line.
While I still think Lieberman may have the last laugh on this one, Thomas believes that the damage done by his defeat is much greater than even the possible loss of a Senate seat by a moderate Democrat. He believes this signifies a poisoning of the waters of political debate.
Though Lieberman says he will run as an independent, the damage has been done. It will be difficult for any Democrat to seek consensus with any Republican without being targeted as an infidel worthy of electoral death. Our already-poisoned political dialogue has not only been made more toxic, but contagious. Taliban Democrats have effectively issued a political “fatwah” that warns all Democrats not to deviate from their narrow line, or else face the end of their careers through a political jihad. Perhaps the few remaining rational Democrats should put on their burkas now and submit to the will of the party mullahs.
As conservatives, I think we should join the “Taliban Democrats” as they dance on the grave of the Old Democratic Party. Why? Because the “Taliban Democrats” made a huge tactical error when they chose to kill off one of their own–and not just because Lieberman will probably end up winning as an Independent anyway. They’ve made a huge error in becoming so narrowly focused in their agenda as to crowd out many of the American people. Look, I hate the political game as much as the next person–but that’s just what it is, a game. And to win, you need to get the most support possible. As Thomas explains,
At the height of social conservative power in the Republican Party, pro-choicers and pro gay rights officials like Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger were featured speakers at GOP conventions. Republican officials described their party as a “big tent” with room for everybody.
Lieberman’s loss reduces the size of the Democrats’ tent to that of a pup tent. The message it sends is that only those who conform to the left-wing fundamentalist worldview will be allowed in. Is that a message Democrats want to take into future campaigns? Do they wish to pervert John F. Kennedy’s vision and instead say that the United States will pay no price, bear no burden and go nowhere in the defense of liberty?
If that is the message the Taliban Democrats want to send to the nation, they have all but guaranteed a Republican presidential victory in 2008 and GOP losses, if any, might not be as bad as predicted this November. Karl Rove could not have devised a more brilliant plan. But Joe Lieberman deserves better.