Views > August 15, 2006

It Came From the Beltway

Joe Lieberman is not a centrist.

By Brian Cook

To illustrate how human consciousness cannot be understood solely through observable behavior, cognitive scientists came up with a thought experiment known as the “zombie problem.” They defined a zombie as a mindless drone, a mere automaton, but one that behaves in ways completely indistinguishable from other sentient human beings. As philosopher Daniel Dennett put the problem rather chillingly, “Since [external behavior] is all we get to see of our friends and neighbors, some of your best friends may be zombies.”

What makes this experiment relevant today, of course, is that it prevents us from saying definitively that Joe Lieberman is a zombie, despite all the external evidence. But more careful judgments can be rendered on Somnambulant Joe and his Aug. 8 primary loss to “netroots” favorite Ned Lamont, although you wouldn’t know it from the hysterical reaction of mainstream pundits.

The standard narrative in the run-up to the election—best exemplified by David Brooks in the New York Times equating the primary battle to a “liberal inquisition”—was that the “centrist” Joe Lieberman was in danger of being purged by the “far left” Lamont. At stake in the primary, the Democratic Leadership Council’s Marshall Wittman urged, was nothing less than “the soul of the Democratic Party.”

Our punditocracy’s tethers to reality must be awfully thin if they can, with straight faces, label Lamont, a 52-year-old multimillionaire cable TV mogul who lives in one of the wealthiest towns in the nation, “far left.” It’s true, the man’s had some nice things to say about universal health care, but a national ABC poll found that two-thirds of respondents support that. It’s also true he’s called for an exit plan for U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but darn it if a June USA Today poll didn’t show that a majority of Americans agree with Lamont on that as well.

However, it would be incorrect to classify Lamont as “anti-war” in general. As the indispensable blogger Billmon has pointed out, when it comes to Israel’s policy of trying to combat Hezbollah’s war crimes by committing their own in Lebanon, Lamont claims on his Web site that “the United States must unambiguously stand with [Israel] to be sure that it is safe and secure.” And thus the core of the Democratic Party’s “soul”—uncritical support for any Israeli action, no matter how self-destructive or immoral—remains unscathed.

Nevertheless, progressives should rejoice in Lamont’s victory, if only because it allows us one more chance to expose, hopefully for the last time, the lie of Joe Lieberman’s “centrism.”

To ask just a few salient questions: On what political playing field is it centrist to monitor and publicly attack students and professors on college campuses for daring to speak such “anti-American” views as “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind,” and “build bridges and relationships, not just bombs and walls” (as the American Council of Trustees, a group co-founded by Joe Lieberman, did after 9/11)? Under whose definition, when a president calls for radical legislation that grants him alone the power to wage “pre-emptive war” whenever he sees fit, is it centrist to not only vote for it and thus cede away one’s constitutionally mandated duty, but also sign one’s name as a co-sponsor of the legislation (as Lieberman did in October 2002)? And finally (because we could be here all day), what kind of a centrist responds to the military, political and moral disaster of Abu Ghraib (as Lieberman did in May 2004) by thanking the man largely responsible, Donald Rumsfeld, for his “apology,” and then adding, “I cannot help but say, however, that those responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, never apologized”?

Lieberman may not be a member of the living dead, but it’s only in the world of the Beltway, where the opinions of tens of millions of living Americans simply do not exist, that he could ever be considered a centrist.

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• Reader Comments

  I know of two, interlinked, explanations for the terms “left” and “right”.

  The first is that it comes from the Estates-General as it was composed before the revolution with the representatives of the aristocracy on the right and the representatives people on the left.

  The second points out that this was the usual arrangement in any such meeting because position to the right of the monarch had higher status.

  In either case the position is that of the vast majority of the population.

  The centre is the position of the monarch: which seems to be exactly where Lieberman stands.

  On the last point: did he even hold a séance! I mean really, those responsible for September 11 are dead.

  Ok, Ok, only most of them, but I love the idea of a seance.

  Posted by richard123 on Aug 15, 2006 at 5:26 AM

  oops
  it should read

  In either case the position of the left is that of the vast majority of the population.

  (Remember Colbert’s complaint about the Left-Wing bias of reality.)

  Posted by richard123 on Aug 15, 2006 at 5:28 AM

  I have heard Lamont’s win described by some in the MSM as a ‘Pyrrhic victory’ for the Democrats, as it will splinter the party and thrust it into the chaotic abyss that only southern Mediterranean countries know so well. 

  This is entirely plausible.  I could definitely forsee dangerous instability from a battle royal between young-turk firebrands fighting for revolution against the old Democratic guard.  Like the DLC crowd, I too know that corporate donations would be drastically cut for a renegade party hell-bent on sustainable working-class conditions and enlightened self-interest globally, and it would not be pretty.  The donations requested from phone-calls or internet blogs would be the only tangible sources of funds, relegating the Party of FDR (a patrician!) to the mendicant level of lowly Buddhists. 

  A party in chaos indeed...Democrats can’t afford to be (d)emocrats.  But don’t buy it.  Lamont and his hypothetical ilk are far too shrewd - if we’re lucky - to get in bed with pacifist scum and anti-corporate reprobates.  As for ‘free trade’, they’ll barter every last resource and commoner in the Union for a modest boost in 4th quarter profits once the oil peaks out and profits across the board are realistically threatened.  No one with less than a well-diversified portfolio and high-altitude land in the mid-Atlantic is safe from a post-WWI German economic scenario.  And even they should be stocking up on ammo and sandbags, if they know what’s good for ‘em.  In a survivalist America, militia man trumps I-banker, and wildcat chases pedigreed dog. 

  Re international affairs: as Cook (and Billmon before him) points out, the direction of foreign policy may moderate, but it’s not going to drastically shift course. This is, after all, America.  We didn’t get where we are by rubbing clits.  We fuck ass, and we fuck hard, and we only use lube out of canny self-interest. 

  To carry the metaphor, Bushco are either too stupid or too numb to care about rupturing their own foreskins.  Even the cabals are picking up on this.  To paraphrase Jefferson, a Lamont every now and then is a good thing, and the corporatist system depends on the blood of Democrats and Republicans alike. 

  But I digress.  Lieberman has officially unofficially joined Cowboy X’s Gang O’ Rogues, and Lamont is already courting ‘moderates’ (see above article) for bigger fund-raising potential.  The players will re-adjust, and the game will go on.  That is, until it doesn’t. 

  Just don’t expect the slide to lilt upwards anytime soon.  Democracy - hell, gardening - requires that attention be paid.  And like Liza at the Cabaret, we’re still partying like it’s 1999, unaware that 2012 is just around the corner, and nobody should ever second-guess Mayan astronomy, what with all that thin air and all those mushrooms lying around…

  Posted by rocco on Aug 17, 2006 at 12:25 AM

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