by emptywheel
I only watched 3/4 of the debate before mr. emptywheel dragged me away, so this may only be a 3/4 fair comment.
But it seemed like one of the really big sells Joe was trying to make was his success at squeezing concessions out of the Republicans. He saved the jobs from base closures. He saved other cutbacks they wanted to make on blue CT.
Basically, he's arguing his biggest selling point is being able to convince the Republicans not to punish CT too badly for being Democratic.
Doesn't that value only hold true so long as the Republicans retain a majority in Congress? Doesn't his entire pitch undermine his claim to want to bring back a Democratic majority?
I could not listen to Lieberman without thinking Rove. Lamont was firm and I felt and believed his words. I never have anything in depth or constructive to say but I can let my $ to my talking for me. Go Ned! I also called Sen. Boxer's office today and they left a message back that the senator did not have any plans to attend the debate. Hmmm...
Posted by: Ardant | July 06, 2006 at 22:27
IMO, and this was echoed by a commenter at FDL, is that Joe debated, not for the dems in the primary, but for the repubs in the general election. He knows he's already lost most of the dems. If this hypothesis is correct, expect him to espouse ever more right wing talking points.
Posted by: Joe Student | July 07, 2006 at 00:01
Meanwhile, Bush is going to tour the country to hear what's on Americans' minds. That has Karen Hughes' fingerprints all over it.
Posted by: SaltinWound | July 07, 2006 at 00:28
``Meanwhile, Bush is going to tour the country to hear what's on Americans' minds.''
Oh, goodie. Can we tell him that we would like to see him tried for war crimes?
Posted by: Paul Lyon | July 07, 2006 at 04:06
"Keep me, that way they won't beat us too badly."
The ethos of a victim, not a fighter.
Posted by: DHinMI | July 07, 2006 at 05:57
Better said than I did, DH.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 07, 2006 at 07:59
One of Joe's lines he uses over and over again is the need to be bipartisan. I think Ned could have really killed that line by tying it to the bridge to nowhere line he used. Maybe that's what he was trying to do. But, as I recall, after the uproar about the bridge, the language was taken out of the bill. Then, after the votes, and when the senate and house committees were meeting to reconcile the bill, the money for the bridge was put back in the bill without the direct language. If that's Joe's idea of bipartisanship, he can have it.
Posted by: Mike | July 07, 2006 at 11:00
The irony about the bases is that after the bases themselves were saved, I read somewhere that Rumsfeld shipped most of the work ot other bases anyway. So they have bases but no jobs. That was what one questioner was referring to, I believe.
Posted by: Mimikatz | July 07, 2006 at 11:59
Yea, shipping the New London Shipyard jobs off (probably to Mississippi) was something I picked up from a C-Span interview with the political reporter from the Hartford Courrant. I subsequently went in and read some more of his reporting, and the shipyard is in one of those districts targeted by the DCCC this year.
And one has to ask, if the Republicans are not the majority after November, and the Dem's hold the committee chairmanships, will Lieberman be doing back room deals with the Republicans behind the backs of Dem leadership in the interests of bi-partisianship?
Posted by: Sara | July 07, 2006 at 12:11