Tuesday, August 01, 2006
They Just Don't Get It
Here in Bumblefuck, IL, I get exposed to all kinds of Republican craziness. As an example, my local paper, which prints six days a week with a double issue on Sundays, runs conservative op-ed pieces at a rate of five to two. On Sundays they throw us liberals a bone and print Gene Lyons and Nat Hentoff but the rest of the week it's all conservative, all the time. We get William Rusher, Morton Kondrake, Bill O'Reilly, Diane West... you get the picture.
So it was with this in mind that I opened the paper Monday evening to find a column by Donald Lambro entitled Pro-Iraq Democrats face uncivil war. I could barely contain myself.
It has nothing to do with Lieberman voting his conscience. This is what the pundits and the Democratic leadership doesn't understand. We expect them to vote their conscience, but Democrats like Lieberman are being targeted not for voting their conscience, but for continuing to defy the will of the people who elected them in the first place. For Lieberman to continue backing a policy that his constituents are overwhelmingly opposed to ("Voters disapprove 70 - 25 percent of the way the President is handling the Iraq war and say 63 - 31 percent that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.") is the equivalent of giving a great big middle finger to the entire state of Connecticut. He is essentially saying "Fuck you. I know better than you." And by doing so, he is no longer serving his constituents, but he is serving his own interest.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that old saying about government being "of the people, by the people, for the people" means that when we elect a person to serve, he or she should reflect our attitudes and opinions. Right? This is why Democrats like Joe Lieberman are being targeted. It's not for voting their conscience, it's for their unwillingness to represent the views and opinions of the people who elected them.
So it was with this in mind that I opened the paper Monday evening to find a column by Donald Lambro entitled Pro-Iraq Democrats face uncivil war. I could barely contain myself.
The latest evidence of the Democrats' uncivil war was in full view this week when former President Clinton, still the most popular figure in the Democratic Party, told its antiwar forces to cease their attempts to purge Democrats who support the war.
Clinton went to Waterbury, Conn., Monday to campaign for embattled Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is trailing anti-war insurgent Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. Clinton campaigns for lots of Democrats, only in this case he was speaking up for a Democrat who is despised by his party's pacifist, anti-war forces because of his support for President Bush's war.
[...]
Leon Panetta, Clinton's White House chief of staff, also took Democrats to task for going after Lieberman.
[...]
"I'm a believer in Edmund Burke's philosophy that people elect you to exercise your conscience independently. They don't elect you to reflect whatever the popular will of the moment is," Panetta said.
"Democrats ought to stand back and ask themselves the most important question: Does Joe Lieberman vote his conscience or is he controlled by one interest group or another? I think the answer is clear. He votes his conscience, and I don't think he ought to be penalized (by Democrats) for that," he said.
It has nothing to do with Lieberman voting his conscience. This is what the pundits and the Democratic leadership doesn't understand. We expect them to vote their conscience, but Democrats like Lieberman are being targeted not for voting their conscience, but for continuing to defy the will of the people who elected them in the first place. For Lieberman to continue backing a policy that his constituents are overwhelmingly opposed to ("Voters disapprove 70 - 25 percent of the way the President is handling the Iraq war and say 63 - 31 percent that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.") is the equivalent of giving a great big middle finger to the entire state of Connecticut. He is essentially saying "Fuck you. I know better than you." And by doing so, he is no longer serving his constituents, but he is serving his own interest.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that old saying about government being "of the people, by the people, for the people" means that when we elect a person to serve, he or she should reflect our attitudes and opinions. Right? This is why Democrats like Joe Lieberman are being targeted. It's not for voting their conscience, it's for their unwillingness to represent the views and opinions of the people who elected them.
