Informed Speculation

…on today’s Lieberman-Lamont showdown comes from Jesse Jackson (not surprising, really, seeing that ‘coherence’ and ‘Jesse Jackson’ rarely come into contact):

Joe Lieberman has been in the Senate for 18 years. He’s a leader of the Democratic Leadership Council, the money wing of the party. He became the party’s vice presidential nominee, even as he championed the DLC’s “triangulating” politics, pushing off of the Democratic Party base to demonstrate his “independence” by embracing key elements of the conservative agenda — championing the war in Iraq, attacking affirmative action, pushing capital gains tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy.

Now he’s pushed off so long, he seems confused about whom or what he represents. He now says he’s a good Democrat, but he’s collecting petitions to run as a third party man if he loses the primary today. He now says he’s a critic of the war, even though Bush gave him a famous kiss to thank him for his unstinting support. He now says dissent is good, when before he essentially challenged the patriotism of critics.

What happened to Lieberman? He pushed off his own voters for so long that he stopped representing their views. His untiring defense of President Bush finally outraged them. Belatedly, he found himself challenged by a real progressive — Ned Lamont — in his primary. When he fell behind in the polls, he experienced a deathbed conversion — and trotted out the Democratic Senate club members to attest to his liberalism.

In Connecticut, Lamont is running against Lieberman on the Democratic Party platform. Lamont is against the war in Iraq and opposes an unending occupation. Lieberman supports more troops and a commitment without end. Lamont is for national health care; Lieberman even chided Hillary’s efforts. Lamont is for providing pre-K for every child and investing in our schools; Lieberman ranks higher military budgets and the war of choice in Iraq as higher priorities. Lamont is for raising the minimum wage and trade accords that protect labor rights, not just capital rights. Lieberman’s DLC scorned the minimum wage, and the senator has never met a corporate trade accord he didn’t like.

Convinced? If so, I’ve got a bridge for sell you may be interested in.

Here are the facts, as opposed to Jackson’s character assassination and innuendo:

The liberal Americans for Democratic Action found him voting its way 80 percent of the time last year. The NAACP gave him an 85 percent mark, the Children’s Defense Fund 89 percent, the AFL-CIO 92 percent.

Overall, Lieberman voted with Democrats 90 percent of the time last year, close to Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd’s 94 percent, according to Congressional Quarterly’s study of key votes.

Does that sound like the Joe Lieberman Jackson just described?…