Racism and Bigotry an Equal Opportunity Offense for both Parties

[Arrian]

http://www.slate.com/id/2147255/nav/tap1/

Note the bit about Lieberman's campaign sending a lobbyist to disrupt a Lamont speech.

All's fair in love and war, and politics is war. Disgusting, isn't it?

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


thats not how its done these days. You get 503(C)'s and blogs and "activists" to do the dirty stuff, and the candidate stays pure.

Yeah, but it's just no fun. The big wool caps and the "Ve are Roosians and ve vant you to vote for Mr. Voorhis" schtick with all the southern California housewives was just so classic. Nothing these days is that memorable.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian

http://www.slate.com/id/2147255/nav/tap1/

Note the bit about Lieberman's campaign sending a lobbyist to disrupt a Lamont speech.

All's fair in love and war, and politics is war. Disgusting, isn't it?

-Arrian

the source of the Slate story is MYDD, a notorious Kos affliated leftie blog. (The proprietor of which got a job with the Warner campaign, IIUC, after which Kos decided that Warner was a good guy, despite being all DLCish.) Im not even going to bother reading that.

The Lieberman web site was hacked today. Probably just some of those silly teens, I suppose.

[Arrian]

Ok. I don't really now the blogosphere (I've never read Kos or MYDD or really any non-baseball blog). I wonder if it's untrue, though...

As for the hackjob, who knows? I agree that Lamont should have denounced his more extreme "supporters."

-Arrian

[Arrian]

LotM, by the way, what do you find appealing about Hillary? I'm curious, and I want to be open-minded. I've long had a rather unreasoning dislike of Hillary. Even now I'm not entirely sure why I don't like her.

Oh, eek, time to leave the office (yay) and cast my oh-so-important vote.

-Arrian

[Odin]

Loserman:
DINOs:

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
LotM, by the way, what do you find appealing about Hillary? I'm curious, and I want to be open-minded. I've long had a rather unreasoning dislike of Hillary. Even now I'm not entirely sure why I don't like her.

Oh, eek, time to leave the office (yay) and cast my oh-so-important vote.

-Arrian

I think shes progressive on economic issues, but with a thirdwayish sense of the value of markets and free trade. She is a firm internationalist, and has the courage to stand behind her guns on Iraq, both criticizing the execution of the war, and refusing to call for a dangerous pullout, DESPITE the political expediency of doing so . Shes not going to let the party be taken over by the left, but she can appeal to many liberal activists in the party. She is broadly progressive on social issues that matter to me, but she also recognizes the importance of community and family, and isnt locked into a knee jerk libertarianism on social issues. Basically I find her appealing on economic, social and foreign policy grounds, and I think she can win. Yes, I know shes pretty power hungry and can be devious - but quite frankly I think a heck of lot of other people are too, including her "purist" critics. Shes scrappy, and tough. And a helluva lot of her enemies, on both left and right, are folks I despise.

[Gibsie]

Now I know what to do next time I want to make an American politician cry: I'll accuse him of growing a beard and suggest dying it red. Ooh, can't you just taste the seething hatred in such a suggestion?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Odin
Loserman:
DINOs:

Ironic, that youre using a name invented by the right.

[lord of the mark]

Bull Moose Blog

"Thursday, August 03, 2006

The Embrace


The Moose suggests that Ned might be judged by the company he keeps.

The Lamont candidacy is a creation of the internet. Sure, the Iraq war is the primary litmus test issue. But let's get real - Limousine Lamont would probably be sunning himself in the Hamptons if it wasn't for the nutroots. They fueled and sustained his candidacy. Lamont is their progeny.

And so, by the nutroots he should be judged. Today's Washington Post,

"The bitter Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut erupted in fresh controversy Wednesday over a doctored photo of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) in blackface that was posted by a blogger who has been an influential promoter of challenger Ned Lamont.

"Lieberman angrily demanded that Lamont denounce the action and sever all ties with Jane Hamsher, the founder of the Web log Firedoglake, who posted the photo on another blog, HuffingtonPost.com. She travels with the campaign along with other bloggers. She is not on the campaign staff but has actively promoted Lamont's candidacy and helped raise money for him through her blog."

Only a few weeks ago, Lamont featured the kingpin keyboarder in a campaign ad (the same one who once made the infamous "screw 'em" comments about the American victims of terrorism). Yet, suddenly Lamont's mind has gone blank about his familiarity with the nutroots,

"Lamont brushed past reporters Wednesday night in Bridgeport, saying: "I don't know anything about the blogs. I'm not responsible for those. I have no comment on them."

And this from the Hartford Courant, (hat-tip - Byron York)

"Lamont arrived with an entourage: His wife, Annie; their campaign driver, Marc Bradley; a blogger, Jane Hamsher; and Bill Hillsman, the creator of his offbeat ads, one of which was played weeks earlier on `The Colbert Report.'"

The Lamont campaign has made much of the inadvertent hug of Joe by President Bush. Well, turnabout is fair play. The embrace of Ned by the vile bloggers tell us much about Lamont. As much as he claims that he is in the middle of the political spectrum, Lamont has embraced the outer reaches of the vulgar left in pursuit of his ambitions.

This incident should be instructive to the national Democratic Party. Enough of the pandering and the capitulating to the nutroots. The embrace of the left blogosphere will come back to haunt the party.

Count on it."

[ajbera]

Y'know, ODIN is an anagram of DINO. Suspicious...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by ajbera
Y'know, ODIN is an anagram of DINO. Suspicious...

[chequita guevara]

Exploiting religious divisions for political gain

Whatever the outcome is Tuesday night in the Lamont-Lieberman race, this contest should be remembered for the clear emergence of an ugly and alarming development -- namely, the unabashed and undiluted use of anti-Semitism accusations as a partisan tool to win elections. And that tactic is clearly part of a growing right-wing reliance upon the basest and most divisive tactics of identity politics and religious tribalism.

In recent weeks, as Lieberman supporters became more fearful that their candidate could actually lose, accusations that Lieberman opponents are motivated by anti-Semitism have become commonplace. Bill Kristol's latest column is titled "Anti-war, Anti-Israel, Anti-Joe," and Kristol claims that "Democrats have adopted a 'European' attitude toward Israel. And toward the United States. That is the meaning of Connecticut Democrats' likely repudiation of Joe Lieberman." A column on Hugh Hewitt's blog, promoted today by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, alleges that there has "been a disquieting whiff of anti-Semitism in the anti-Lieberman campaign." Dean Barnett wrote in the Weekly Standard: "Some Americans believe that Israel should not exist. And these are the Americans that Lamont and other Democrats have so eagerly embraced."

Marshall Whittman Monday insinuated darkly that "the degree of left hatred (sic) toward Joe sometimes betrays something deeper," and then came right out with it: "Anti-Semitism will often not speak its name directly, but there is a distinct undercurrent that may explain some of the irrational venom." The Lieberman camp itself has blamed what it claims is a "growing strain of anti-Semitism" for opposition to the senator. As the New York Times put it in a recent article: "Some of Mr. Lieberman's supporters say there is a strain of anti-Semitism in the antiwar left that could make Jewish voters uneasy about supporting Mr. Lamont."

This increasingly aggressive use of anti-Semitism accusations as a political weapon is visible beyond Connecticut. Indeed, it appears to be a prominent weapon in the Republican arsenal as the GOP battles to maintain control of Congress this year. Within the last several weeks, the Weekly Standard has been publishing articles suggesting that Jews ought to feel obligated to vote Republican because of President Bush's support for Israel and the supposedly substantial anti-Semitism on "the left."

One such article, by David Gelernter and titled "When Will They Ever Learn?" (referring to Jewish support for Democrats), argued that Jews "who continue to insist on voting Democratic" provide a "lesson in self-destructive nihilism," and that Jewish support for Democrats is part of the "tragic history of [Jewish Americans] acting against their own professed interests." Writing about that article, Scott Johnson of the Powerline blog argued that the reason "why so may American Jews hate the president who stands by Israel" is because they are not true adherents to Judaism; instead, "the true religion of the American Jews within Professor Gelernter's sights is liberalism."

This number of examples, within such a short period of time, constitutes a clear trend. And it is an ugly and divisive trend, where accusations of anti-Semitism become just another partisan plaything designed to sow yet more tribalistic divisions among Americans for domestic political gain. Accusing those who oppose Jewish candidates of anti-Semitism, or instructing American Jews that they must vote Republican, is to descend to the lowest levels of political manipulation.

The anti-Semitism accusations themselves are too frivolous to merit much discussion. These same accusers will be the first to claim, with no intended irony, that the favored candidate of the "far left" is Jewish Sen. Russell Feingold -- the candidate who has had a massive lead among Daily Kos readers in its last several presidential straw polls. Beyond that, the notion that the Bush administration's foreign policy is better for Israel is highly debatable, and, in any event, the suggestion that Jewish Americans must vote in American political elections based upon dual loyalty to Israel is offensive and indescribably divisive.

In one sense, there is nothing new about these efforts to create religious divisions for partisan gain. Republicans spent 2004 attacking the authenticity of John Kerry's Roman Catholicism, insisting that good Catholics were compelled to vote for Bush and that Kerry -- to use the GOP's phrase -- was "wrong for Catholics." These religious smears reached their low point with the crusade by certain prominent Republican Catholics to deny Communion to Kerry. As Reason magazine documented, dividing the electorate based on religious lines was central to the GOP strategy: "Throughout the 2004 campaign, [Karl] Rove maintained that, if Bush won the Catholic vote, he would be reelected. Rove was right."

But the naked and widespread political exploitation of anti-Semitism on a national level is new. And it is, in equal parts, reprehensible and dangerous. The Lieberman race leaves no doubt that dividing Americans along religious lines to try to win elections is becoming a more widely used and acceptable tactic.

-- Glenn Greenwald

[chequita guevara]

Leiberman sucks, no two ways about it. And GOP supoprt for the weasel doesn't say anything good about him. Not that I really care too much who the Dem's pick, but I do have something against politicians who call me a traitor for opposing the war in Iraq, as Leiberman has insinuated for years.

[Ramo]

Lieberman's site wasn't hacked. He invested jack into his net infrastructure, and the server that he's using went down due to traffic. And he's making bald assertions about dirty tricks because, well, that sort of thing is commensurate with the quality of his career and campaign.