Ned Lamont Helps Guide David Broder And Patrick Healy To Practice What Joe Lieberman Preaches

"Sniffing Panties" was the headline on this post by Atrios in reaction to Patrick Healy's NY Times "50-source" front pager on the Clinton's private life. There have been several similar takes - by Christy Hardin Smith at firedoglake (here), and by Arianna Huffington (here), by Paradox at The Left Coaster (here). If there was ever any doubt that the sex life of a Clinton was the fetishistic obsession of the DC pundidiots - to the exclusion of, like, fairly important matters, as in, say, news of 2500 young Americans killed in a totally unnecessary war instigated by the guy they all want to drink beer with - David Broder immediately put such doubts to rest, with his nose crassly parked under Hillary's skirt, leering at her crotch (here). Digby has a much too polite response to Broder here. But perhaps a more apt rebuttal (or is it prebuttal) to Broder et al comes from a less expected source: the beltway's favorite Dem-bashing self-appointed moral superior Democrat, Joe Lieberman. Broder loves him some Joementum. But he has not the least hesitation to abandon Joe's moral guidance when it's Broder's behavior at issue - for that Broder conveniently provides himself (and his Clinton-sex-obsessed media friends) total exemption. Although posted by Ned Lamont for more personal campaign reasons, the Lieberman quote - and the timing of its recollection - is a most apt exposure of the monumental hypocrisy and disingenuity residing in the self-appointed superior minds of DC's "opinion-makers." Opposition research [on candidate’s personal lives] does nothing but demean our politics and defame the people who are its targets. There is nothing wrong with going after your opponent’s voting record or any other evidence of negligence in his public life, but digging into his bank account, his phone records, his sexual life, and literally his garbage when these things have nothing to do with the performance of his public duties - past, present, or future - is wrong. Source: Excerpt from Joe Lieberman's "In Praise of Public Life", p. 76 May 2, 2000