The Joe Lieberman Defeat

Another Casualty

I have mixed feelings about the Joe Lieberman defeat in Connecticut yesterday, Bush. First off, I'm sad to see another good man sacrificed to your unspeakable war in the Middle East. I believe this erstwhile Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency to be a good man at heart, but one who allowed himself first to be deluded by your lies, Bush, and then to be seduced by his own rhetoric and perhaps by a heady sense of power in his dissident stance. He seems to believe that it's "the old politics of polarization" that defeated him, and that he, Joe Lieberman, is the one true Democrat.

I say no. I do very much believe that this is a time for Democrats to stand by each other, and not to allow single-issue politics to stand in the way of much-needed party unity. Division among Democrats is in good part what has empowered the well-oiled Republican machine these past decades. But it was Joe Lieberman himself, in my view, who betrayed his fellow-Democrats, not the other way around. His announced intention to run as an independent and thus, possibly, to divide the Democratic vote and assure a Republican victory in November is evidence enough that his priority lies in the vindication of his own wounded ego, not in those Democratic values that he claims to support.

There's a powerful message here for Joe Lieberman--and for you, too, Bush, and I hope that you're able to listen to it. The message is an angry one: that you have seriously mis-led us into the path of war, and that we need to find our bearings as a country once again. The spectacle of our powerlessness in the debacle of the Middle East has reached truly tragic proportions. We are no longer trusted. We are no longer respected. We are no longer even feared: the limits of our military power have been revealed before the world. And while people are dying in their hundreds, in Israel and Lebanon now, as well as in Iraq, we are reduced to little more than standing on the sidelines and watching it unfold.

This is your doing, Bush. This is the result of the arrogant misuse of power. This is what happens when you believe that your power is unstoppable. Your heedless rush to action, your rash interventions with insufficient plans for their results, your misplaced belief in the unquestionable rightness of your vision, your inability to listen, your inflexibility--these are among the "root causes" of the Middle Eastern conflicts that you say must be addressed.

Since you have proved yourself incapable of a change of mind, a change of heart, it's up to us voters now to ensure that this country's course is changed. I'm grateful to the courageous voters in Connecticut for having led the way. Joe Lieberman's true task right now is not to make empty speeches about polarization. It's to get behind the Democratic candidate in his state, and to help ensure another voice for reason and sanity in the US Senate. To even risk the replacement of his own voice by that of yet another Republican is to dis-serve his country at a time of crisis.

Bush, we need your followers out of power. We need to move on beyond this oligarchy of corporate wealth that you and your Republicans have helped create, and into a truer version of the democracy you preach so piously to others, but practice so little yourself. If this be partisan politics, so be it. We have suffered bitterly under your partisanship for too long. It's time for us to move on to a different kind of party now.