The Last Honest Man
Robert Kagan writes a piece on Joe Lieberman for the Sunday Washington Post. He says much the same thing as I have since I began following this story (for quite some time now).
No, Lieberman's sin is of a different order. Lieberman stands condemned today because he didn't recant. He didn't say he was wrong. He didn't turn on his former allies and condemn them. He didn't claim to be the victim of a hoax. He didn't try to pretend that he never supported the war in the first place. He didn't claim to be led into support for the war by a group of writers and intellectuals whom he can now denounce. He didn't go through a public show of agonizing and phony soul-baring and apologizing in the hopes of resuscitating his reputation, as have some noted "public intellectuals."
These have been the chosen tactics of self-preservation ever since events in Iraq started to go badly and the war became unpopular. Prominent intellectuals, both liberal and conservative, have turned on their friends and allies in an effort to avoid opprobrium for a war they publicly supported. Journalists have turned on their fellow journalists in an effort to make them scapegoats for the whole profession. Politicians have twisted themselves into pretzels to explain away their support for the war or, better still, to blame someone else for persuading them to support it.
Al Gore, the one-time Clinton administration hawk, airbrushed that history from his record. He turned on all those with whom he once agreed about Iraq and about many other foreign policy questions. And for this astonishing reversal he has been applauded by his fellow Democrats and may even get the party's nomination.
As Kagan notes, it is quite discouraging that this kind of recanting of past positions does indeed work for some politicians. If Lieberman had played that game he would never have even been in this primary at all, and Ned Lamont would still be a member of his country club. Because recanting and pretending it never happened works for Ned Lamont. But because Lieberman will not lie to save his own neck, the netroots want his head on a platter.
Joe Lieberman, the last honest man. A fitting name regardless of the outcome of the primary.
By larwyn, Saturday, 5 August , 2006 @ 2:01 pm
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Kagen used “pretzel” to describe the way they twist and turn their rationalizations/logic. I was a great fan of the term “pretzel logic” last year, but see evidence it has gone beyond that with the LEFTIES. (Blackface & Homo Joe are only symptoms of what we are seeing)
Therefore I posed a question at a thread on Just One Minute:
(paraphase)
“Pretzel” just doesn’t seem to do justice to their brains’ wiring. I visualize the mess that a few kittens can do to a skien of yarn, but don’t know the word to describe it.
Clarice Feldman, contributor to American Thinker and regular commenter at JustOneMinute and known knitter responded with:
“larwyn–”catawampus” with so many definitions including fierce and askew–it captures at the same time their tangled thinking and fercoious defense of nonsensical thinking..
Posted by: clarice | August 04, 2006 at 01:26 PM
Me at 2:01:
“Clarice, shall we call them “catawampites”, “catawampists” or “catawapusses”?The “pusses” rather gets across their lack of courage/character and the sound of word suggests their acceptance of the deviant.”
later in thread:
“catamite”…..refers to the boy used, the victim of sexual abuse and not the abuser.When I think of the KosKids/DUers and all the rest of these mostly youngsters taught and encouraged to spew venom w/o reason, they are being abused just as the arabs abuse their children with indoctrination into their death cults.Therefore think the cata- works.
Posted by: larwyn | August 04, 2006 at 02:41 PM
Peter added these:
If the Dems get to play with this war,”Cataclysm”
…..
Al Gore “Catatonic”
Then I saw this post by VanDerLeun at
American Digest titled “Hometown Hezbollah”
File under: “Suffer the Little Children.”
“I don’t know about you but I’m especially fond of the sub-title that tells us we are spending some quality time with “The family of Ahmed Assil, the first modern-day suicide bomber.”
“First modern-day suicide bomber... Sort of gives you a real head’s-up notice thatthe wiring in all human heads is not all exactly the same, doesn’t it“…….Vanderleun : August 3, 06
Not sure all those words prefixed with “cata-” will catch on - but they sure seem apt.
Hope you and your readers will also take a look at Shrinkwrapped post of yesterday - quite telling that we are all trying to figure these people out. 85% of that DU poll responded that “severe mental illness in their home”. 30% think Bush did 911.
Rampant “catawampus”, I would say. (Edit - closed tag)
By larwyn, Saturday, 5 August , 2006 @ 2:03 pm
Oops! Unclosed i tag ..Hope that fixed it. Sorry.
By Gaius, Saturday, 5 August , 2006 @ 2:14 pm
Catawampus/catawampusses - excellent term. I’ll have to remember that.
By Black Jack, Saturday, 5 August , 2006 @ 3:58 pm
Joe Lieberman, the last honest Democrat. If the loony Left succeeds in tossing him overboard, it will mark the day individual freedom of opinion could no longer be tolerated in the Democrat Party.
Re: the above search for better descriptions of loony Left thinking. Let me offer the following: spaghetti logic, rat’s nest reasoning, donkey delusions, and jackass rationalizations.