SOME TIME AFTER having lunch in Iraq with the junior senator from Connecticut, Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware told an interviewer, "Either Sen. Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot, or he knows he's spinning a line."
Although Ware was referring specifically to Joe Lieberman's observations about Iraq, his characterization perfectly summarizes the former vice presidential candidate's whole political approach, and it explains why so many Democrats are eager to see him lose in a primary election next month.
Many political observers have tried to paint the candidacy of Lieberman's challenger, Ned Lamont, as merely a referendum on the invasion of Iraq, which Lieberman supported. This newspaper's editorial board declared it "disturbing" that the senator has been "targeted for defeat by national fundraisers based on his foreign policy views." The reason for Lamont's popularity, explained the Washington Post's David Broder, "is simple: the war."
The war is certainly a reason -- and given how events continue to devolve in Iraq, a perfectly sufficient one -- but those who focus only on that miss the broader opposition to Lieberman and the kind of politics he represents.
For too long he has defined his image by distancing himself from other Democrats, cozying up to right-wing media figures and, at key moments, directing his criticisms at members of his own party instead of at the Republicans in power.
Late last year, after President Bush's job approval ratings hit record lows, Lieberman decided to lash out at the administration's critics, writing in the ultraconservative Wall Street Journal editorial pages that "we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril." In this he echoed the most toxic of Republican talking points -- that criticizing the conduct of the war is actually damaging to national security.
Lieberman has a long history of providing cover for the worst of Republican actions while enthusiastically serving as his own party's scold. After the Senate acquitted President Clinton on all impeachment charges, Lieberman called for his censure. More recently, he rejected a call by Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) to censure Bush over the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, calling the attempt "divisive."
