What is the difference between bipartisanship and bootlicking?

Apparently, if you are an admirer of Joe Lieberman's method of practicing bipartisanship, none.

Stuart Rothenberg:

Lieberman’s defeat is likely to add to the partisanship and bitterness that divides the country and Capitol Hill, and to generate more media attention to grassroots bomb-throwers who, down the road, are likely to make the party less appealing to swing voters and moderates.

I'm sure I'm the last in a long line of bombthrowers to point out that the definition of bipartisanship ought not to be that Republicans get to say jump and Democrats have to reply, "How high?"

I'm also far from the first to point out that the country is becoming less and less bitterly divided every day and more and more in agreement that Geoge Bush and the Republicans have screwed things up badly and that we have to throw them and their lackeys and enablers like Joe Lieberman out if we want anything to get better, not just in Iraq but here at home.

And everybody from Somerby to Alterman to Atrios to David Neiwert to Digby and on down the food chain to the lowliest of the low---I mean me---has again and again expresed their frustration, dismay, and anger at the way insider pundits, politicians, and analysts insist on covering politics as if they live in a universe where Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Roger Ailes of Fox News (not the good Roger Ailes) and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, and before them Lee Atwater, Morton Downey Jr, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Joe McCarthy, and Father Coughlin, had all never been born and as if the poisoned state of political debate was the result of a Democratically transmitted infection, a bug Democrats keep catching because they refuse to wear their galoshes in the rain and then spread by forgetting to cover their mouths when they cough.

It's this willful obtuseness, this refusal to acknowledge reality in the form of the Right Wing of the Republican Party, which is in effect the only wing of the Republican Party on the national level, that drives us "crazies" on the left side of the bandwidth crazy about the Media elites.

Rothenberg also writes, "Lamont’s victory, however, would not be without its downside for Democrats, since it would only embolden the crazies in the party..."

As far as a Lieberman defeat emboldening the crazies (to do what exactly?) goes:  Anyone who thinks that Lieberman is being driven into a corner and, with luck, out of the United States Senate, by McGovernite crazies of the lefty blososphere is someone who is covering the Connectictut Senate race via Google.

Hartford isn't that far from Washington, folks.  Make the drive.

And the people who are going to be most emboldened are rank and file Democrats who will see that the Bush League lock on the country isn't unbreakable.  A Lieberman defeat, particularly if he comes to his senses and gives up the idea of an embarrassing run as an independent, could be the earliest sign of just how if the Democrats are going to win back a majority in one or both houses of Congress they're going to do it.

By a lot of Northeasterners, Midwesterners, and Westerners giving up the idea that bipartisanship isn't what the Republicans have turned it into and voting out of office supposed moderates who haven't done anything to moderate the Right Wing policies of George W. Bush and company.

There's no way to read that paragraph about bipartisanship by Rothenberg without wondering if Rothenberg, a self-proclaimed "non-partistan" analyst, thinks that the best outcome for the country in the fall is for a continued and unrestrained Republican majority aided and abetted by Joe Lieberman with the rest of the Democrats finally shutting up and learning their place, which is, as Lieberman demonstrates for them everyday, on their hands and knees somewhere down on the floor a tongue's length distance from George W. Bush's cowboy boots.

Hat tips to Tom Tomorrow, Carolyn Kay and Atrios, who wonders who are the real "crazies.'.

Cross-posted at the American Street.

Comments

[Kevin Wolf]

Having grown up in Hartford/suburbs, I'm following this race with interest.

Lieberman needs to be tossed out on his ass - hopefully with such force that even he will see the futility in an independent run.

Good riddance.

[sfmike]

Loved this clear-thought rant. I only wish we were doing to Senator Dianne Feinstein in California what the good folks on the East Coast are doing to Mr. Lieberman.

[harry near indy]

simply and shortly said, lance.

congratulations and props and salutations and kudos and big ups and cheers and skoal and salut and whatever words of praise you want to use and that i can't remember now --

that post deserves it. and so do you.

[Chris the Cop]

Lance, I was going to ask you about the Lieberman thing when I see you later this month, but you beat me to it.

Some thoughts:
1) Joseph Lieberman is fundamentally a decent man. If there is no place for him in the Democratic Party, it will never become a majority party.
2) Lieberman did two things wrong: (i) he supported/supports the Iraq War and (ii) he periodically appears on Sean Hannity's radio show. Good people can reasonably disagree over Iraq and supporting the war does not make him a 'bootlicker." However, why he would ever speak to a first-rate twit like Hannnity is beyond me. I can certainly see why that would legitimately infuriate a thinking, left-wing Democrat.
3) Iraq is one issue, a big one to be sure, but only one. There are lots of others out there where he is fully in line with the Party. esp. on social issues. The Christian Coalition recently gave Lierberman a ranking of...zero. That has to indicate something.
4) Pundits are saying it'll be a disaster for the Dems if he loses--that overstates it---but it's not being only proposed to stifle dissent or control the debate or ensure a Republican majority.
5) If you're serious about ending "a continued and unrestrained Republican majority," really belieivng that Lieberman is one of the Bush "lackeys and enablers" over a single--albeit vital--issue is a sure loser. A Democrat can stick to his/her principles and still respect Lieberman.

[Avedon]

Lance, I want to hear how you explained to Chris the Cop when you saw him later that it's not just one issue, and that Lieberman has been worse than useless on all of them, lately.

[Chris the Cop]

Avedon, you can have no use for Lieberman all you want, but it is simply not true that disdain for him is based on anything else but his stance on Iraq. If Lieberman was against the war, he'd be a lock.