Eight years ago in p3: The second Alaska gold rush

Sarah Palin made her first p3 appearance on Sunday Morning Toons, August 31, 2008.

Sensing immediately, like nearly everyone on earth who wasn't John McCain or Bill Kristol, that she would become comedy gold, I used the post to launch my "the governor, not the Python" gag, which I continued to milk for the duration of that electoral season, and to mock the utterly mockworthy Joe Lieberman, who had the unenviable experience of being Palin's beard until the announcement of McCain's choice.

Quote of the day: Honest confusion

As we’ve seen, most elite conservatives have fervently declared themselves against Trump. Some claim it’s because they consider Trump a liberal — albeit a liberal who favors tax breaks for the rich, war with Iran, and a ban on Muslims; maybe they’re confusing him with Joe Lieberman.

- Roy Edroso, demonstrating that the principle difference between the days when his weekly Village Voice column on the right-wing blogosphere came out online late Sunday night and now, when it comes out Monday morning, is that in the old days he made me snort chamomile tea out my nose, and now it's English breakfast tea.

A quantum of umbrage: Most. Ghastly. Beltway. Rumor. Ever.

On the buzz about who might replace Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security:

In the political world, former Senator Joe Lieberman is also a rumored possibility to take the job, in part because he could help make a possibly contentious Senate confirmation process a bit easier

Okay, I realize that it's the job of rumor mongers to . . . you know, monger rumors. But:

If Obama puts Lieberman – the same Lieberman who was the first Democrat [sic] to step into the well of the Senate and board the Clinton penis train, the same Lieberman who would have been gloriously unknown outside his home state had not Al Gore decided to run for president in 2000 by running away from Clinton (thus giving Holy Joe an undeserved elevation to national prominence for which Gore has yet to atone, thirteen years later), the same Lieberman who never missed a chance to go on the Sunday talk shows and threaten to derail whatever consensus his party had struggled to achieve in the previous week, the same Lieberman who never saw a chance for getting America into another war that didn't make him tingle all up and down his thighs – up for DHS head, it will confirm my steadily-increasing conviction that Obama doesn't see his job as fixing what's wrong with America, but rather as presiding over and softening the blow of our growing national awareness that we can't have nice things anymore.

See also: No More Mister Nice Blog.

The unforgiving minute: A net gain in intelligence for think tanks on both the right and the left

An old joke, sure, but no one here apologizes for digging deep into the classics when something like this happens, as it was inevitably bound to do:

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman is joining the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, the organization announced Monday.

Lieberman — Al Gore’s vice presidential running mate in 2000 and a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 — will co-chair AEI’s American Internationalism Project, an effort to rebuild a bipartisan consensus about big foreign policy questions.

Ah, yes. Droopy Joe Lieberman, former Democratic Senator who was completely unelectable in the Nutmeg State without the strong support of Republicans, a man whose idea of <airquotes>bipartisanship</airquotes> is to hear the latest Democratic initiative and then rush to the nearest microphone to sell it out.

And just as inevitably, it would be Politico that would break the news, wouldn't it?

To take liberties with another old political joke, it'll be interesting to see how much conservatives like Lieberman now that he's inside the tent pissing in.

As much as I've admired Al Gore's post-2000 work, he still must atone for elevating this little weasel to national notice.

Minute's up.

A quantum of umbrage: For the love of Pete, will you just go away?

Holy Joe Lieberman, the smarmy little self-serving hypocrite who was so disliked and disrespected in the Senate that almost no one showed up to see his farewell speech last week and those few attendees started petering out while he talked, now thinks the problem behind last week's multiple shooting in Newtown CT  is video guns, not actual guns.

Connecticut is the state that Lieberman professes to represent for a few more weeks. I hope they tar and feather him if he ever sets foot back inside the border.

Quantum of umbrage: “It's a wonder people didn't show up yesterday to pelt him with rotten fruit."

But Joe Lieberman's ace in the hole was that, first, people would have had to actually show up at his retirement speech on the Senate floor  before they could introduce the vegetable motive. The NYT teed-up their report of Holy Joe's farewell with this description that says so much about the esteem and regard the Weasel from the Nutmeg State has accumulated over the years from his friends on both sides of the aisle:

With only a few of his Senate colleagues in attendance and the gallery sparsely filled [. . . ]

And if you are guessing that he used the rest of his time before that ever-diminishing audience to give a mealy-mouthed plea for the sort of bipartisan comity he always stood for -- that would be racing for the camera to sell out whatever his fellow Democrats were currently trying to put together -- you would be absolutely correct.

It remains one of the bedrock convictions at p3 that, however Al Gore may have redeemed himself in the last 12 years, he hasn't even made a dent in atoning for the worst thing he ever did: Elevating Lieberman to the national stage in a misguided attempt to distance himself from Clinton.

I've been under the weather this week, so I'm doubly pleased that Charlie Pierce has taken in hand the matter of itemizing Holy Joe's most egregious offences:

I think there has not been a more completely worthless political figure in my lifetime than Weepin' Joe Lieberman. His practical accomplishments were practically nil, when they weren't actively hostile to progressive interests. What Milbank sees as a "push back against mindless partisanship," people who don't have to worry about their Beltway social schedules will see as the career of an utterly unprincipled, warmongering hack.

Pierce conveniently lists the worst of the items in the indictment; I recommend it, just to refresh your memory about what a corrupted notion “bipartisanship” has become to Beltway Insiders.

(That's a Pierce-ism in the title to this post, by the way.)

This also makes Lieberman the first person to receive not one, but two p3 Good Riddance bumper stickers.

Joseph Lieberman: Nothing so became his presence in the Senate as his leaving it.

Here's some good news from the Nutmeg State, in these difficult times

Rather than face losing his 2012 reelection campaign, Joe Lieberman's going to take his ball and go home. The loss to the Sunday morning talking-head shows will be incalculable. (Go here to see Lieberman's contribution to our standards of weights and measures.)

Note, by the way, that this still doesn't get Al Gore off the hook for elevating that narcissistic weasel to national notice in the first place. For a sampling of Lieberman's greatest Senatorial hits, see here, here, and here.

We haven't observed this tradition here at p3 for a couple of years, but I think it's time to resurrect it. Senator Lieberman, this bumper sticker's for you.

With only a smidgen of good luck, this might be the last time I ever use the Lieberman tag for this blog.

Saturday morning tune: "It makes no difference anyway"

The set-up: Ben Nelson, who's trying his level best to take Joe Lieberman's place as the most despicable member of the Senate Democratic Caucus, has announced that, although he doesn't know what's in the forthcoming climate bill (and no one does!), he'll filibuster it.

When Groucho does it, it's satire. When Nelson does it, on a subject like this, it's beneath contempt.

("Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" was written by the classic songwriting team of Kalmar and Ruby for the 1932 Marx Brothers film "Horsefeathers.")

The unforgiving minute: Submitted for your consideration

Sen. Joe Lieberman, a dealer in petulance and poison, who believes government should have the power to immediately remove the citizenship of anyone who he thinks is acting against the best interests of America.

What the Senator fails to realize: That story has already been done.

To be filed under "F" for "Fanatic," and "J" for "Justice."

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Special "Unsettling Car-Based Sexuality" edition

(There. Let's see what that title does for traffic.)

No time for dilly-dallying this week; we'll cut straight to the chase, beginning with this week's toon round-up by Daryl Cagle.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Joe Heller, Bill Day, and Monte Wolverton,

p3 President’s Award for Fitness, 2010 Edition: Joe Heller.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), and Stephane Peray, (Thailand).


Ann Telnaes examines a punctured balloon.


Mark Fiore highlights this bit of good news: At least they don’t insult your intelligence with that silly euphemism “In the event of a water landing . . . “


You've waited long enough: Time for The Comics Curmudgeon's examination of one factor that might help you decide if you’re uncertain whether to remain a regular Oregonian reader (although I’m not sure in which direction it might tip the scales for you): “Unsettling car-based sexuality in the comics.”


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman is grateful for small miracles.


You know what? I’m happy. Now it can be told—the lost story of how Joe Lieberman financed his first Senate campaign! Directed by Tex Avery in 1949, in fabulous Droopy-Vision, here’s “Wags to Riches:”

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer examines the anatomy of a hollow threat (click to enlarge):





And if you haven’t bookmarked Slate's political cartoon for the day, now’s the time.

After all the harm he's done, why draw the line there?

I'm not going to become a Fan of the Facebook page called "If Joe Lieberman filibusters health care, I will donate to his opponent." (It was started on the 9th of November and this morning it says it has 13,000 pledgers, and an estimated $650,000 in pledges.)

I'm waiting for a Facebook page called "I will donate to Joe Lieberman's opponent regardless of whether he filibusters health care." That one I'll join right now.

It's way past the point where anyone should consider cutting that poisonous little narcissist any slack simply because he passed up one opportunity to sell out the caucus.

The unforgiving minute

Today's topic: Units of measurement:

Liebersecond (sec_L): 1.0 Liebersecond is defined as the interval of time separating the announcement of a possible legislative victory for Congressional Democrats and the moment when Sen. Joe Lieberman steps in front of the cameras to simultaneously sell out the caucus and grab for publicity by threatening to derail it.

The Dems were smart to let him keep his rank and committee gavel, since he only disagrees with them about the war.

Minute's up.

The unforgiving minute

[Updated below.]


Digby makes a very important (and unsettling) point:

[I]magine if the Republicans had subpoena power.

Actually, come to think about it, one of them already does, and he's taking his marching orders from Glenn Beck.

Minute's up.

[Update: Actually, I'm not sure if the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has subpoena power, although he can certainly convene political show-hearings--something he never bothered to do during the previous administration.]

Sunday morning toons: Special Pre-Thanksgiving Clearance Sale edition

Bob Geiger devotes a lot of his toon review this week to the question of who's lower: Joe Lieberman, for his attempt to blackmail Senate Democrats into forgiving and forgetting his support for McCain and his attacks on Obama? Or Senate Democrats, for knuckling under? And there's the added theme that the Detroit Three might get much the same rough handling as Lieberman.

At Daryl Cagle's round-up this week, they're serving a full platter of the economy (sautéed in Motown Bailout), with a big heaping stack of Hillary for Secretary of State on the side. Mm-mmm! Good eats!

p3 Picks of the Week: Daryl Cagle, Mike Lane, John Darkow, Jimmy Marguilies, Adam Zyglis, and John Cole.

The p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium goes to this creepy-yet-convincing piece by Jerry Holbert.

If some other site has featured a toon that week I usually don't double-book it here, but this gem by Steve Sack, which also made Geiger's list this week, is worth a second mention. I think Sack did a particularly good job of capturing Joe's smug little smile.

And several toons have recognized that, in the annual whining about a so-called "War on Christmas," no one has noticed that Thanksgiving is already under a lot worse pressure. Tip of the big-buckled pilgrim hat to Eric Devericks, Gary Varvel, Rick McKee, and my favorite, Steve Kelly.

p3 World Toon Review: Cameron Cardow (Ottowa), Victor Ndula (Nairobi, Kenya), Werner Wejp-Olsen (Denmark), Sergei Elkin (Moscow),

Batocchio returns with a special Thanksgiving treat: the overstuffed 33rd installment of the Right-Wing Cartoon Watch. Chart the persistent themes of Republican political humor, starting with "No matter what, it's the Democrats' fault!"


For years, the consensus among paleontologists was that the last words of the dinosaurs before that meteor hit the earth and drove them to extinction, 70 million years ago, were "Uh-oh." Ann Telnaes presents an alternative theory.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and Tom Tomorrow feels fine.


Don’t eat at Joe's. I'm not sure any deliberate attempts at Thanksgiving-related humor this week could top the Sarah Palin pardoning-the-turkey press conference, but we're nothing if not intrepid here at p3. This week's featured animation is a 1945 cornucopia of sight-gags--about one every three or four seconds--from Tex Avery: "Jerky Turkey." A lot of the gags are pegged to the times--a Jimmy Durante turkey, for example, and lots of references to the war and war rationing (the Mayflower has a "C" gas rationing sticker). There's even a thinly stretched Joe Lieberman connection: The pilgrim is voiced in the same style (and possibly by one of the same voice actors) as Droopy the Dog, who's become the toon manqué for Lieberman in satirical circles.

(By the way, my other choice for this week's featured animation was Warner Bros.' "Tom Turk and Daffy," which Susanne at FireDogLake also covered, so you can get a Thanksgiving weekend twofer.)


p3 Bonus Toon: It wasn't that long ago that Phil Gramm--architect of the banking deregulation binge that helped put the economy where it is today, and likely nominee for Treasury Secretary had the election turned out differently--opined that a lot of the problem with America was that the average workers and consumers and homeowners were a bunch of "whiners." Americans were outraged by the remark at the time, but Jesse Springer wonders if he might have been onto something--maybe it really is a state-of-mind thing. (Click to enlarge.)

Nice bit of spin: Joe Lieberman is John McCain's Hillary Clinton

Last week, Republicans (and silly Democrats) floated the claim that, if Obama had had any stones, he would have picked Hillary instead of Biden.

This week, it looks like that accusation cuts both ways; here's Obama spokesman Bill Burton yesterday:

If John McCain really wanted to show he's the maverick he purports to be, he wouldn't just have had Joe Lieberman giving a speech. He would have put Joe Lieberman on the ticket, but he was forced not to by the right wing of his party.

Ouch.

(Hat tip to AmericaBlog.)

Lieberman helps bury Gonzales "no-confidence" resolution

September 3, 1988: Senator Joe Lieberman (technically a Democrat), addressing the Senate regarding President Clinton and the Independent Prosecutor's report:

The President's intentional and consistent misstatements may also undercut the trust that the American people have in his word, which would have substantial ramifications for his presidency. Under the Constitution, as presidential scholar Richard Neustadt has noted, the President's ultimate source of authority, particularly his moral authority, is the power to persuade, to mobilize public opinion and build consensus behind a common agenda, and at this the President has been extraordinarily effective. But that power hinges on the President's support among the American people and their faith and confidence in his motivations, his agenda, and ultimately his personal integrity. As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, "My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens who are straight and honest cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest; that is all the strength I have."

Sadly, with his deception, President Clinton may have weakened the great power and strength of which President Roosevelt spoke. I know this is a concern that many of my colleagues share, that the President has hurt his credibility and therefore, perhaps, his chances of moving his agenda forward. But I believe that the harm the President's actions have caused extend beyond the political arena. I am afraid that the misconduct the President has admitted may be reinforcing one of the most destructive messages being delivered by our popular culture --namely that values are essentially fungible. And I am afraid that his misconduct may help to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong left in our society.

June 11, 2007: Senator Joe Lieberman (technically an Independent), voting on cloture for the no-confidence resolution regarding Alberto Gonzales (the complete text of which reads: "It is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people."):

No.

As Raw Story spells it out:

Only seven Republicans voted with their Democratic colleagues to express their disappointment with the firing of 8 US Attorneys and other controversial matters in Gonzales's administration of the Department of Justice: Norm Coleman (MN) Susan Collins (ME), Chuck Hagel (NE), Gordon Smith (OR), Olympia Snowe (ME), Arlen Specter (PA), and John Sununu (NH).

Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, voted with the Republicans. The vote tally was 53 in favor of invoking cloture, and 38 voting to continue debate. One senator voted 'present.'

Explain this to me again: What possible purpose can there be, other than a sapheaded obedience to the most false kind of collegiality imaginable, that prevents Senate Majority Leader Reid from stripping Lieberman of his seniority (and with it, his committee rank)?

Gonzales has gutted the Justice Department and placed the hollowed-out remains in the service of his master, George Bush, turning the chief law-enforcement agency of the land into nothing more than "a political arm of the White House".

He should be strung up by his sweaty little thumbs, but at least a vote of no confidence would have been a start.

Of the seven Republicans who voted for cloture on the resolution, five (including Oregon's own faux-centrist junior Senator) are sweating bullets over their re-election next year.

But even Arlen Specter, who as chair of the Judiciary Committee putatively charged with oversight of Gonzales' Justice Department never failed to collapse like a wet taco when it was time to put his professed outrage into action, found the gumption to support the no-confidence resolution.

Not Joe, though. All that high-minded talk of "the American people and their faith and confidence" their leaders' "motivations," "agenda," and "personal integrity" sits poorly on the lips of a man who makes a routine practice of selling out his own party and caucus for the cameras.

The most dangerous place in Washington is between Lieberman and a TV camera where he can demonstrate his loyalty to the Bush agenda.

Yes, that's what's been holding them back so far. Astute call, gentlemen.

Robert Gates (1/26/07):

Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that any Iraq resolution opposing President Bush’s escalation plan “certainly emboldens the enemy and our adversaries.” “It seems pretty straightforward that any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks.”

Dick Cheney (1/25/07):

Cheney said the administration would disregard the nonbinding resolution opposing the troop increase and suggested it undermines soldiers in a war zone. "It won't stop us," he said. "And it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops."

Joe Lieberman (1/28/07):

This morning on Fox News, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) echoed the Bush administration and claimed that people who oppose escalation in Iraq are emboldening terrorists. “[I]t will discourage our troops, who we’re asking to carry out this new plan, and it will encourage the enemy,” Lieberman said.

Associated Press (1/26/07):

In perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated attack in four years of warfare, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers last week at the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and then shot them to death.

The U.S. military confirmed a report earlier Friday by The Associated Press that three of the soldiers were dead and one was mortally wounded with a gunshot to the head when they were found in a neighboring province, about 25 miles from the compound where they were captured. A fifth soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.

Yes, clearly the absence of a non-binding resolution from the U.S. Senate--long known to be like kryptonite to terrorists and insurgents--is the only thing preventing our adversaries in Iraq from doing whatever the hell they want.

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Oregon, so the less said about Lieberman today, the better. Cheney, of course, crossed over the line into murderous madness a long time ago, but it was only a few weeks back, during Gates' confirmation hearings, that people could be heard sighing with relief that at least Gates wouldn't be a whackjob--and a relentlessly partisan, reality-denying whack-job, at that--like his predecessor.

Red sky at morning, Lieberman take warning

I've been following the Lieberman/Lamont contest because the anti-incumbency angle, among other features of the business, resonates beyond the Connecticut borders.

But I have to say, this is just silly:

Does the new Joe Lieberman ad depict a sunrise or a sunset? On Tuesday Lieberman launched an ad depicting the sun low in the sky over an orange-tinted ocean as a female narrator says softly: "Joe Lieberman thought you might enjoy a break from Ned Lamont's negative attacks." Yesterday the Lamont campaign asked: "Is the sunset in Joe's new ad a fitting metaphor for the end of his Senate career?" But Lieberman aide Dan Gerstein fired back that the ad depicted a "sunrise." So which is it?

The fact that Lamont supporters (or Lieberman detractors--there's not a 100% overlap in the two groups) spent time actually tracking that image down suggests that the collaborative fact-checking capacity of the blogworld, however healthy overall, nevertheless has its practical upper limits. Clearly, there's at least something to the rumors that there are bloggers out there with way too much unstructured free time.

But the fact that Team Lieberman is now in the position of having to insist that they really do so know in which direction the sun rises is a very bad sign. In fact, that's the differential (as they'd say on House, MD) for a campaign that has seriously lost its focus on the big picture.

Is a picture of the sun near the horizon a sunrise or a sunset? (If you really feel the need to judge this for yourself, you can see the ad here.) The story reminds me of the incident of the stolen box of raisins on "Seinfeld:" Even if the Lieberman camp did pass a Santa Barbara sunset off as a Connecticut sunrise--does it really matter enough to lie about it?

It also brings to mind a track from David Frye's classic "I Am the President" album (although the joke itself probably goes back at least to vaudeville):

["Toastmaster General" George Jessel has been brought to the White House to prep President Nixon before he meets Prime Minister Golda Meir:]

JESSEL: Mr. President, the Hebrew word for "hello" is "shalom."

NIXON: And the word for "goodbye"?

JESSEL: The Hebrew word for goodbye is "shalom."

NIXON: Well, how do you know if you said "hello" or "goodbye"?

JESSEL: If she leaves after you say it, you said "goodbye."

In Lieberman's case, the smart move would simply have been to laugh it off (as the Adorable One does in this recent example). How hard would it have been to say: "Guys, guys, let's all get a grip here--it's just stock footage we used to make a point in an ad. It's not the freakin' Zapruder film. You guys do know that George Washington didn't actually chop down a cherry tree, don't you?"

But for whatever reason, the Lieberman campaign hasn't been the poster child for smart moves this electoral season. Opening "Sunrise, Sunset" out of town is just the latest example. Let's move on.

CT Dem primary: The morning after

The NYTimes got it right (and Portland's newspaper of record didn't) about what the Lieberman loss means: Democrats in Connecticut know that accommodating the Bush administration is not--cannot be--moderation:

The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president’s choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration’s contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.

Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person’s right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative.

When Mr. Lieberman told The Washington Post, “I haven’t changed. Events around me have changed,” he actually put his finger on his political problem.

And this is why the outcome of yesterday's CT primary is important in Portland, Oregon, as it is in Portland, Connecticut--and in Poughkeepsie, Peoria, and Petaluma.

Courtesy of Arivosis, here's the shorter Lieberman campaign message from now until the general election:

The Democratic party has been taken over by extremists who don't remember September 11 and who are soft on national security.

Don't expect to hear much else from Joe during his campaign as a soi-disant "independent;" Take this away from him and he's shooting blanks. But do expect to hear it a lot; expect to hear it on Imus, the 700 Club, and Hannity & Colmes, and expect it to be repeated endlessly by such true defenders of Democratic Party purity as Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Coulter.

There is, of course, a word for Senate candidates who base their campaign on nothing more than attacking the Democratic party: The word is "Republican."

Which brings up this odd rumor reported by George Stephanopoulos:

According to a close Lieberman adviser, the President's political guru, Karl Rove, has reached out to the Lieberman camp with a message straight from the Oval Office: "The boss wants to help. Whatever we can do, we will do."

What I find puzzling about this story is that, from the sound of it, it was leaked from the Lieberman camp.

I can easily imagine Rove's office making the offer, and leaking it, simply to create mischief; and I can imagine a politically and ideologically rudderless Lieberman campaign accepting the offer but learning just enough from last night's thumping to keep the arrangement a secret as long as possible. I mean, when the Pennsylvania GOP rents out the Green Party like a Grange Hall to help get Santorum elected, anything's possible.

But for Joe's own people, less than 24 hours after losing a primary election because he was seen to be far too accommodating to the right-wing extremists running the government, to themselves publicly announce that they're fielding an invitation from Karl "Heart of Darkness" Rove himself to help their campaign . . . why would any Democrat touch Lieberman again without a level 3 hazmat suit?

Not to be forgotten as the Connecticut Primary votes are counted

(Written after the polls closed in CT, but before the votes were counted.)

Tomorrow morning's Conventional Wisdom--no matter whether Leiberman or Lamont wins the CT Democratic primary--will be about bloggers, Iraq, the 1968 and 1972 elections, and other usual suspects. (TJ righteously excoriates The Big O for echoing the kind of analysis that Beltway Insiders are perpetuating simply--as Gov. William J. LePetomaine would say--to protect their phony-baloney jobs.)

But, First Amendment kind of guy that I am, I am compelled to point out an important theme in the Connecticut Democratic primary, one that's getting far too little play. A Lamont victory over Lieberman--hell, simply the fact that Lamont has already clearly scared the bejeezus out of a 3-term Senator and former VP candidate--represents a backlash against the pernicious power of incumbency in national-level politics. And a good thing, too.

Part of the reason Lieberman is looking at the very real possibility of a primary loss tonight (as well as the reason he's claiming he'll run as an Independent in November--in a party named after himself--if he does lose) is because members of Congress, as well as their Beltway cocktail party confreres, assume that once they've been elected to office the position is theirs until death takes them.

Quoth Glenn Greenwald in yesterday's Salon.com:

There are few positions that offer greater job security than being an incumbent member of the U.S. Congress. The reelection rate for incumbents in the House is now 98 percent, a figure that would create envy even among 1970s Politburo members. It is extremely rare for a three-term senator to lose an election, let alone lose to a primary challenger from his or her own party.

For some time now, this has been one of the greatest and most frustrating contradictions in our political system. Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with, even contemptuous of, Congress, yet they continue to reelect the same representatives over and over, making reelection effectively automatic.

It is not hyperbole to describe a Lieberman defeat as an earthquake for the political establishment -- which is why virtually all members of that establishment, from both political parties and from its pundit class, have been enthusiastically supporting Lieberman. More than any other factor, what enables elected officials to be so unresponsive to the views of those whom they ostensibly represent is that their incumbency advantage effectively eliminates the fear of being removed from office.

The supremacy of incumbency has given birth to a more or less permanent Beltway class that views its power as an entitlement, something that its members have the divine right to possess until they choose to relinquish it. It is that aristocratic mindset that explains the bizarre sense of anger and offense triggered among the political and pundit classes -- and within Lieberman himself -- by Ned Lamont's aggressive primary challenge. The effort to defeat Joe Lieberman was considered to be improper, uncouth, even somehow undemocratic by those most entrenched in our stagnant, plodding, virtually immovable political structures.

Beyond striking a blow against the Iraq war and the neoconservatives who are responsible for it, a Lamont victory would deal a hard blow to the power of incumbency and the entitlement mindset it has spawned. It would be seen, rightfully so, as a repudiation of the Beltway pundit and political classes that, from the start and with virtual unanimity, viewed the Lamont challenge with scorn, as a distasteful rebellion by the crazed, dirty, unenlightened masses. The most important impact of a Lamont win is that it would shake the foundations of a self-contained Beltway political structure that is as unresponsive as it is corrupt at its core.

I support measures to limit the incredibly lopsided advantage of incumbency, starting with publicly financed elections. And, truth be told, I support giving free air-time to qualified candidates, to the horror of radio and TV stations who make a fortune selling publicly-owned airwaves back to us in the form of campaign ads every 2 years. (It is, I grant you, a comfortable position to support since it will never, ever, ever come anywhere close to enactment.)

I don't support term limits, even though they're generally enacted in the name of equalizing the playing field, because in fact they throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you're tired of seeing the same people elected over and over, lower the barriers to entry for viable challengers, rather than forcing out office-holders without regard to whether they still have their constituents' support.

And that also means--as shocking as this evidently is to Cokie Roberts, Joe Lieberman, and the editors of The Oregonian--allowing Democrats to challenge other Democrats in Democratic primaries.

Shocking thought.

Especially since polling results indicate that incumbency may not be the great deal-breaker it's been for sometime now:

Especially worrisome for members of Congress is that the proportion of Americans who approve of their own representative's performance has fallen sharply. Traditionally, voters may express disapproval of Congress as a whole but still vote for their own member, even from the majority party. But 55 percent now approve of their lawmaker, a seven-percentage-point drop over three months and the lowest such finding since 1994, the last time control of the House switched parties.

Members of Congress actually having to defend their phony-baloney jobs. What a concept.