All Joe All Week

The media is spewing forth a vast amount of ink  - or pixels - on the primary in Connecticut. I suppose that's only to be expected when it's down to the last week of campaigning. But I really can't recall this much national attention on a state primary before this. The pro-Lieberman columnists versus the anti-Lieberman ones; the pro and anti papers; it's getting difficult to sort them all out. (And they are anti-Lieberman, not pro-Lamont. The NYT endorsement of Lamont was really an outright attack piece on Lieberman.)

So today, Jonathan Alter weighs in from Newsweek. While not at all flattering to Joe Lieberman, Alter is even less flattering to the anti-war left.

Lieberman's problems began long before he was kissed by President Bush at last year's State of the Union. With his Senate seat safe, he didn't have to fight in 2000. He went easier on Dick Cheney in their vice presidential debate than he did a few weeks back against fellow Democrat Lamont. During the Florida recount, he made a point of favoring military absentee ballots likely to be Republican. Lieberman has voted 90 percent of the time with the Democrats—but his first impulse is often to find fault with them. His 2004 run for the White House was better known for its attacks on fellow Democrats than on the incumbent. He approved of Washington intervention in the Terri Schiavo case. On Iraq, he buys the GOP argument that equates criticism of the commander in chief with hurting the troops, which means no real oversight. (Has he forgotten the Truman Committee during World War II?) The duty of the opposition is to oppose.

….

But if the blogs aren't a force on the ground, they are becoming a powerful factor in directing the passions (and pocketbooks) of far-flung Democratic activists. They're helping fuel a collective version of what shrinks call "projection," where the anger of Democrats at Bush is projected on a handy target, in this case Lieberman. But in doing so, they have neglected what FDR called "the putting of first things first." Job one for Democrats is identifying which Republican House incumbents are vulnerable in their own states and directing all available energy against them. Savaging fellow Democrats (except those who cannot win) should come after taking control, not before.

Which is in line with the position I've held all along. This was an unnecessary fight at a bad time. The losers will be the Democratic party one way or the other.