That’s One Hell Of A Circumcision

Publius has already addressed the most baffling claim in the latest in Jon Chait’s increasingly strained defenses of Joe Lieberman and attacks on evil blogofascists, his argument that Kos et al “believe that any deviation from the party line–except for a few circumscribed instances, such as Democrats running for office in red states–is an unforgivable crime.” Er:

Number of Red states: 30

Number of total states: 50

Yeah, that’s one circumscribed set of circumstances all right. And, of course, then you have Kos’ support for the pro-Alito anti-choice Robert Casey in a state both Gore and Kerry won. And the fact that there’s no nationwide campaign against pro-war blue-state Senators like Cantwell and Clinton. To the extent that Kos is vulnerable to criticism on these choices, it’s that he’s too willing to sacrifice core principles to pick up Congressional seats. Until Chait gets this right, he’s just dancing with strawmen (and since he has too much integrity to offer any substantive defense of Lieberman, without this egregious distortion of the facts he’s got nothing left.)

And this is also a good question: what exactly is the High Principle that Holy Joe is defending with respect to the Iraq? The principle that countries are obliged to maintain hugely expensive open-ended military commitments until they can turn quasi-failed theocratic states into Swiss-style democracies even if there’s no evidence at all that an ongoing military commitment could create such a result? That if Paul Wolfowitz said that there’s no ethnic strife in Iraq, it must be true? That if you keep trying failed policies again they’ll suddenly start to work? That Republican Presidents are inherently beyond criticism no matter how destructive (or illegal) their policies, but woe onto any Democratic one who gets a blowjob from someone not his wife? Help me out here.