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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Wait a minute, Bobo -- I thought it was the Howard Dean wing
Posted by Jill | 7:59 AM
Just when I was ready to give props to David Brooks for understanding that a change in Congress is a good thing, he proves that he never, ever disappoints me:

Why am I weirdly happy? I’m a conservative. Many people I know and admire lost tonight. And yet somehow this strikes me as a good night for the country.
First, there would be something wrong for the country if the Republicans got to act this way in the House and then keep their majority. That would be a sign we’d become a one-party state.

But more than that, the voters have voted for change, but they haven’t gone overboard. They did not choose the Ned Lamont wing of the Democratic Party. Many moderate Republicans survived, despite my pessimistic expectations – Chris Shays, Deborah Pryce.


What Bobo has conveniently forgotten is not only that vocal war critics Bob Menendez and Sherrod Brown won Senate seats, but that Ned Lamont's anti-war stance ultimately forced Joe Lieberman to moderate his "Anything you want is fine by me, boss" stance on the Iraq War:

Ned Lamont made Joe Lieberman talk about the Iraq war. He made Joe play on his turf. Lamont made Lieberman not only explain his "stay the course" talk on the Iraq war, but actually move his rhetoric, his image and even his stance, if only in talking points, towards the majority position in the Democratic Party and in America. Lamont made Joe openly admit that it was long past time to change the course.

Now everyone was talking about the war. The referendum on Bush and the rubber stamp Republicans' stay the course Congress was real now. Lamont and the primary voters of Connecticut made that happen.

Before Ned Lamont came along, Joe Lieberman was just another Bush parroting Congressional rubber stamper. He had breakfast with Donald Rumsfeld. He was touted as being the next secretary of defense, which could still happen if Rumsfeld is forced to resign after the midterms. Joe chanted "stay the course" right along with all the other Republicans.

Then Ned Lamont came along and blew Joe Lieberman's comfortable, anti-opposition stance, stay the course incumbency out of the water and his political resume for a loop. Now Joe Lieberman's bio will always read that a revolutionary candidate named Ned Lamont beat Joe in a primary fight and Joe had to buck the voters of his own state in order to keep his political life alive, while remaking his talking points to match his challenger on a war that he'd supported from the start
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