It's the Butt-Boy, Stupid.

My friend Mr. G. Baker points me to a Slate article which stops the easy analysis on Lieberman. Lieberman and 7 other Dem Senators who voted for the war are up for re-election this year. Only Joe has experienced a viable challenger....

Many commentators, including Slate's Jacob Weisberg, have looked at Ned Lamont's victory over Lieberman and concluded much too hastily that the Democratic Party is galloping recklessly leftward. But if that were truly the case, wouldn't, oh, five of these seven be facing serious primary challenges? Even three? (They teach us in journalism school that three makes a trend.) But there aren't even two Democratic senators facing more than nominal primary opposition. Four of the seven (Clinton, Feinstein, Carper, and Kohl) represent blue states where anti-war fever is running high. Why aren't they fighting for their political lives?

Because the Connecticut primary was about one man and one state. It was about Lieberman's excessive fawning over the president. It was about Lieberman's voting not only against the showboating withdrawal resolution introduced by Sen. John Kerry, but also against the moderate and reasonable resolution introduced by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, which merely urged the president to "expedite the transition of United States forces in Iraq to a limited presence and mission." (Lieberman was the only blue-state Democrat, except inexplicable retiring weirdo Mark Dayton, to vote against Levin.) It was about anger—fully justified anger, and from a far larger constituency than Z Magazine readers—at the notion, widespread among the commentariat, that national-security "toughness" demands support for the mendacious and ruinous policies of the Bush administration in Iraq and elsewhere. And, of course, it was about other things besides Iraq, too.