Harold Meyerson Is Shrill

Harold Meyerson gets medieval on Joe Lieberman:

Lieberman's Real Problem: I am about to become a traitor to my class. Among my estimable colleagues in the Washington commentariat, the idea that Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is facing a serious challenge from a fellow Democrat over Lieberman's support for the Iraq war seems to evoke incredulity and exasperation.... My colleagues also finger those crazy lefty bloggers as the culprits behind the drive to purge Lieberman from Democratic ranks.... No great mystery enshrouds the challenge to Lieberman, nor is the campaign of his challenger, Ned Lamont, a jihad of crazed nit-pickers. Lieberman has simply and rightly been caught up in the fundamental dynamics of Politics 2006, in which Democrats are doing their damnedest to unseat all the president's enablers.... Lieberman's broader politics are at odds with those of his fellow Northeastern Democrats.... He is being opposed because he leads causes many of them find repugnant.

As early as December 2001 Lieberman signed a letter to President Bush asking him to make Saddam Hussein's Iraq our next stop in the war against terrorism.... And just last week Lieberman characterized the progress of the war as "a lot better" than it was a year ago, adding, "They're on the way to building a free and independent Iraq." So, why the surprise if Connecticut voters.... conclude that they cannot trust his judgment on the single most important issue of the day? That's... opting for a senator who pays more attention to the war on the ground than to the war in his head....

Connecticut's three Republican House members are scrambling for their political lives for fundamentally the same reasons that Lieberman is.... The issue here... [is] that his positions -- not just on foreign policy but on trade, Social Security and other key issues -- are... out of sync with those of Democrats in his part of the country. To expect his region's voters to dump the area's moderate Republicans but back Lieberman is to expect that they will adopt a double standard in this year's elections.

Lieberman's ultimate problem isn't fanatical bloggers.... His problem, dear colleagues, is Connecticut.