Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Connecticut on my mind
Anybody who pays the slightest attention to my political philosophy knows that I like politicians who transcend partisan boundries and who are willing to buck clearly-expressed public opinion to hold firm to their beliefs. Joe Lieberman is unquestionably such a politician. On the other hand, I also like politicians who oppose the Iraq War, who don't support legislative intervention in specific right-to-die cases, who believe it's perfectly patriotic to question the actions of a commander-in-chief in wartime, and who like to keep their religious faiths separate from their politics. Lieberman is not such a politician.
The above paragraph explains in a nutshell why I feel so ambivalent about today's Connecticut Democratic primary, which most polls predict that Lieberman will lose. Compounding my very mixed feelings on Lieberman are my similar feelings on challenger Ned Lamont, who strikes me as something of a crass opportunist, cashing in on Lieberman's support of the Iraq war to buy himself a Senate seat. Moreover, even at this early stage of his career, he is demonstrating a great willingness to rush towards the centre to squeeze out an opponent, which is possibly the single greatest flaw in North American political culture today (people who worry that this alleged tendancy to drive the moderates out of both parties is leading to a dangerously polarized political landscape have it backwards - the real problem is that a mad rush to the centre by the very people accused of doing the polarizing is transforming politics from a true contest of principles to a hair-splitting contest). No matter what the results of today's primary, I'm going to be a little disappointed.
What I feel no ambivalence about at all is my conviction that, if Lieberman loses the primary, he should run as an independent. If he believes that he is a better Senator than Lamont would make - which I assume he does, or he presumably wouldn't be running against him - it's absolutely incoherent for him to decline to challenge him in a democratic election.
UPDATE: Mustafa, now holding the POI fort basically on his own it appears, takes issue with a couple of my accusations against Lieberman, claiming that Lieberman has never suggested that it's unpatriotic to question the C in C in times of war and that Lieberman's faith doesn't guide his politics. I'll briefly deal with each in turn.
On the question of questioning Commanders-in-Chief, Mustafa himself quotes the passage to which I was referring:
Maybe I'm out to lunch, but that looks an awful lot like a suggestion that domestic debate on the handling of foreign wars isa bad for the country.
(Mustafa closes by saying 'I think this is much more nuanced than "if you criticize the commander-in-chief, you are a terrorist!"'. It's an ironic thing to say in accusing me of failing to appreciate nuance.)
On the other question, Mustafa points out that Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, is highly progressive on a number of issues that have traditionally divided Americans along religious/secular lines, such as abortion and gay marriage. I concede this immediately, and note that stem cell research could also be added to the list (though I don't believe Orthodox Judaism has been as silly about this as fundamentalist Christianity). On the other hand, he has supported providing state funding to religious institutions, which blurs the line between church and state. He supported keeping the feeding tube in Terry Schiavo (which Mustafa correctly points out is not proof of allowing religious faith to infringe on secular politics, but must be considered in the context of the rest of his record). He has a Tipper Gore-esque record on censorship of popular media.
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Anybody who pays the slightest attention to my political philosophy knows that I like politicians who transcend partisan boundries and who are willing to buck clearly-expressed public opinion to hold firm to their beliefs. Joe Lieberman is unquestionably such a politician. On the other hand, I also like politicians who oppose the Iraq War, who don't support legislative intervention in specific right-to-die cases, who believe it's perfectly patriotic to question the actions of a commander-in-chief in wartime, and who like to keep their religious faiths separate from their politics. Lieberman is not such a politician.
The above paragraph explains in a nutshell why I feel so ambivalent about today's Connecticut Democratic primary, which most polls predict that Lieberman will lose. Compounding my very mixed feelings on Lieberman are my similar feelings on challenger Ned Lamont, who strikes me as something of a crass opportunist, cashing in on Lieberman's support of the Iraq war to buy himself a Senate seat. Moreover, even at this early stage of his career, he is demonstrating a great willingness to rush towards the centre to squeeze out an opponent, which is possibly the single greatest flaw in North American political culture today (people who worry that this alleged tendancy to drive the moderates out of both parties is leading to a dangerously polarized political landscape have it backwards - the real problem is that a mad rush to the centre by the very people accused of doing the polarizing is transforming politics from a true contest of principles to a hair-splitting contest). No matter what the results of today's primary, I'm going to be a little disappointed.
What I feel no ambivalence about at all is my conviction that, if Lieberman loses the primary, he should run as an independent. If he believes that he is a better Senator than Lamont would make - which I assume he does, or he presumably wouldn't be running against him - it's absolutely incoherent for him to decline to challenge him in a democratic election.
UPDATE: Mustafa, now holding the POI fort basically on his own it appears, takes issue with a couple of my accusations against Lieberman, claiming that Lieberman has never suggested that it's unpatriotic to question the C in C in times of war and that Lieberman's faith doesn't guide his politics. I'll briefly deal with each in turn.
On the question of questioning Commanders-in-Chief, Mustafa himself quotes the passage to which I was referring:
It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.
Maybe I'm out to lunch, but that looks an awful lot like a suggestion that domestic debate on the handling of foreign wars isa bad for the country.
(Mustafa closes by saying 'I think this is much more nuanced than "if you criticize the commander-in-chief, you are a terrorist!"'. It's an ironic thing to say in accusing me of failing to appreciate nuance.)
On the other question, Mustafa points out that Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, is highly progressive on a number of issues that have traditionally divided Americans along religious/secular lines, such as abortion and gay marriage. I concede this immediately, and note that stem cell research could also be added to the list (though I don't believe Orthodox Judaism has been as silly about this as fundamentalist Christianity). On the other hand, he has supported providing state funding to religious institutions, which blurs the line between church and state. He supported keeping the feeding tube in Terry Schiavo (which Mustafa correctly points out is not proof of allowing religious faith to infringe on secular politics, but must be considered in the context of the rest of his record). He has a Tipper Gore-esque record on censorship of popular media.
