Party of One

Shorter Verbatim Peter Beinart: “Listen to Joe Lieberman’s liberal critics and you hear the same lines again and again. He has “betrayed his party” and practiced “turncoat politics.” He has “defined his image by distancing himself from other Democrats.” He’s not a “team player.” Funny, that’s just what originally drew me to the guy.” Yep, says it all. Although they think of themselves as crafty moderates, Nader and his most foolish apologists have nothing Holy Joe and his supporters when it comes to rank narcissism.

And Lieberman’s strange decision to become a much more demagogic and irrational defender of the Iraq war as it kept getting worse reminds us of his brilliant strategy of running to the right in a Democratic primary, as if he really thought that he was seeking the votes of the New Republic editorial board rather than Democratic voters. And then you remember that he somehow lost a debate to Dick Cheney. Hmm, I mean as much is I’d love to give most of the credit to liberal bloggers, could it be that in addition to his countless problems on the merits he’s losing because he’s running yet another awful campaign?