Democrats, It's Time

Lieberman is behaving just how we warned you he'd behave. Stoller:

For my money, this is Joe Lieberman slapping Chris Dodd and the Democatic Party in the face. Say what you will about Dodd, but this Dodd cares about John Bolton's nomination. Dodd was the whip on the vote, and successfully blocked Bolton's confirmation. Dodd played the good soldier to Lieberman's campaign in the primary, campaigning for him and starring in one of Joe's ads. Even before the primary ended and while Dodd was campaigning for Joe, Joe stopped taking Dodd's calls, and he wouldn't talk to him on primary night, sending an aide to deal with Dodd as Dodd stood outside Joe's hotel room. Joe hates Dodd because Dodd treated Joe like he deserved to be treated, as the loser of the Democratic primary.

In other words, Joe is angry and vindictive, and is starting his retribution early. Just today he reversed himself and said Democrats should win Congress (he demurred a few days ago), but that Democrats need to change their tone. Lieberman essentially threatened Dodd on Pajamas Media, a right-wing media site. And now on Bolton, Lieberman is just stabbing Dodd and the rest of the Democrats in the front. He's not even bothering to stab us in the back anymore.

Bolton represents everything Democrats dislike about Bush's cowboy policy. It was Bolton's shop at the State Department that pushed the faulty WMD intelligence. You can see video above of Bolton getting grilled and denying responsibility for his underlings' work on this point. Bolton was also atrocious on North Korea, severely damaging our ability to negotiate years ago, and recently putting together a resolution that everyone knows will be ineffective. Bolton doesn't actually believe in diplomacy, and has no achievements to his name. He's also egregiously partisan and vitriolic; the only blog he's granted an interview is a right-wing anti-Islam hate site.

So why would Lieberman adopt Bolton now, after rejecting him twice before? It's probably the same reason Joe is selling out net neutrality, going back on his promise to support it by offering to help Senator Ted Stevens in the lame duck session pass a bill that would in all likelihood get rid of net neutrality.

Spite.

Hey Democrats, time to come out for Lamont. We're all in this together.