By Stanley Rogouski, 7/9/06
For anyone who supports an end to
the war in Iraq,
the Connecticut Senate debate between the pro-war incumbent Joseph Lieberman
and his challenger Ned Lamont was painful to watch. Lamont, an old money Greenwich aristocrat, a
former Republican who made his fortune in telecommunications, was obviously not
ready for the big leagues. Nervous, stammering, bug-eyed, and wearing an
ill-fitting suit, he was easy prey for the cool, confident Lieberman who
bullied his way through the debate with a passion that was nowhere in evidence
during his lackluster performance against Dick Cheney in 2000. Lamont, the
darling of the anti-war grassroots of the Democratic Party, came off looking
like a naughty schoolboy getting a stern rebuke from the vice principal.
Political debates are rarely this one-sided, even in statewide contests that
are not as tightly controlled as the presidential debates, and even when one candidate is an experienced
political operative and the other a novice. How exactly was Joseph Lieberman, the laughing stock of the 2004 Democratic primaries, able to transform himself into the Lloyd Benson of Connecticut and his
opponent into Dan Quayle?
While other Democratic Senators like
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and John Kerry have been careful to cloak their
‘yes’ votes on the Iraq War Resolution in anti-war rhetoric, Lieberman almost
seems to relish pointing out the cognitive dissonance of his colleagues. He
voted for the war and he’s not ashamed of it. Just like the rest of the
Democratic Party, he’s a reliable source of support for the Israeli right. But,
unlike the rest of the Democratic Party, he doesn’t try to hide it. As a
result, he’s earned the passionate animosity of the party’s anti-war
grassroots, who often refer to him as ‘the Senator from the Likud Party’. The
problem is not anti-Semitism (although Lieberman’s orthodox Jewish religion if
often the elephant in the room) but the fact that the rest of his record has
been distorted beyond all recognition. Lieberman, who’s a rather typical
centrist Democrat on most domestic issues, and who, unlike Bill Casey in
Pennsylvania or Tim Kaine in Virginia,
is a reliable supporter of Roe vs. Wade, has been painted almost as the second
coming of Tom Delay or Newt Gingrich, rather strange considering how he’s been
endorsed both by Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO.
The problem for Lamont is not that
Lieberman has been justifiably called to the carpet by the Democratic Party’s
grassroots for his pro-war voting record, but that Lieberman’s Democratic
colleagues in the Senate have been allowed to get away with so much. Indeed,
for all of his anti-war rhetoric, Howard Dean has never spoken at an anti-war
rally. Hillary Clinton, who’s more hawkish on the issue of Iranian nukes than
even George Bush, will get hit by an occasional Code Pink demonstration, but
still retains some of that mythic Clintonian luster on the Democratic Party’s
left. Chuck Schumer, who’s not only pro-war but a powerful national figure in
the party’s fundraising apparatus, is rarely even mentioned. And John Kerry,
who flip flops as much as the Republicans say he does, gets a pass for his flip
flopping simply because it was the Republicans who first pointed it out.
What’s more, the Democratic Party’s
‘anti-war’ grassroots is often uncomfortable with the anti-war movement, at
least as represented by International Answer, United for Peace and Justice, and
other organizations who have been organizing large mobilizations against the war
in Iraq
since 2002. It’s not only the presence of openly pro-Palestinian radicals and
supporters of Hugo Chavez that keeps Democratic politicians away, but the fact
that Democratic politicians are caught between the desire to please the party’s
rank and file and the necessity of appealing to their elite corporate donors
and potential supporters in the military industrial complex. As a result, the
party’s anti-war grassroots often gets stuck with empty rhetoric while its
pro-war elite gets the actual votes. Far from inspiring the party’s anti-war
rank and file to get involved in the political process, the anti-war rhetoric
coming from the party’s leaders often has the effect of demobilizing people and
it puts novice politicians like Ned Lamont in a tough position. Caught between
their sincere desire to end the war in Iraq and the consciousness that they can
only criticize the war within a narrow framework (i.e. you can criticize its
poor execution of the war but not its morality and you must constantly reiterate
your support of the troops even as you criticize their mission), it leads to
paralysis, especially when confronting an open supporter of the war like
Lieberman, who need face no such complexity.
Indeed, Lamont, wound up
looking like the living embodiment of these contradictions. While Lieberman
spoke authoritatively from his own experience and forcefully argued for
continuing the occupation, Lamont couldn’t seem to express an opinion without
citing an authority from the military: ‘General
X agrees with me. General Y agrees with me’.
He stammered and twitched, swallowed his words and shrunk into his
ill-fitting suit as his opponent moved in for the kill, brutally pointing out
the number of times Lamont has changed his position on the war.
‘That’s the second
position you’ve taken Ned,’ Lieberman bellowed. ‘That’s the third. That’s the
fourth. Oh there you go again. That’s the fifth position you’ve taken. What is
your position Ned? Oh Ned. That’s the sixth position you’ve taken.’
Lamont had no answer for
this devastating performance because Lieberman was accurately pointing out the
contradictory statements of Democrats who want to have it both ways, want to
gain the support of their party’s anti-war grassroots but still want to remain
within the framework of what the ruling class considers ‘respectable’ and
‘moderate’ dissent. And Lieberman, justifiably incensed over the way that he’s
been chosen as the sacrificial lamb for his party’s support of the war in Iraq, and under none of these restraints, tore into the hapless Lamont like a pit bull who has
been released after a long period of tugging against his chain.
‘How dare you question my
commitment to the Democratic Party’ he roared. ‘Five years ago you were a
Republican. Three years ago you gave me money. And Now that you have the
opportunity to be a Senator you’ve decided that you’re against the war.’
Indeed, after pummeling
Lamont’s contradictory stances on the war and calling him to his face an
opportunistic amateur with no solid core of principle, a silly upstart willing
to slander another Democratic politician for his own ambition, Lieberman,
secure in his mastery of the debate, went right back to an old classic, the
same line he used against Howard Dean in 2004:
‘Will Ned Lamont release his tax returns the way I have?’
Lamont, who should have
seen this coming from 100 miles away, once again had no answer and dodged the
question in a way as obvious I was embarrassed for him. It was painful and
embarrassing to watch, not because Lamont or his supporters are bad people.
Indeed, they’re not. It was painful and embarrassing to watch precisely because
Lieberman is a pro-war Bush sycophant and an advocate of mass murder in Iraq – just
like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Diane Feinstein, and Bob Casey –
and Lamont was so clearly out of his league. He so clearly was incapable of
making the anti-war case against his opponent.
Debates, of course, mean
little in and of themselves. Kerry beat Bush decisively in all three in 2004.
Bush still went on to win (or get close enough to steal) the election in
November. As unlikely as it would seem to anybody watching his wretched
performance in the debate against Lieberman, Lamont could still pull off an
upset. Lieberman has made a number of enemies in Connecticut. He is unpopular and, most
importantly of all, the Republicans want to run against Lamont, so their
sycophants in the media will still talk him up.
But even if Lamont wins
the primary, it still doesn’t mean that Joe Lieberman will no longer be the
Senator from Connecticut.
While Lieberman is deadly serious about taking on people inside the Democratic
Party’s left (vowing to run as an independent if he loses the primary), his
anti-war opponents have already vowed to support him if he defeats Ned Lamont
in the primary. No progressive Democrat would go anywhere near the idea of
running as a third party candidate and this has the effect of preemptively
disarming them against the determined Lieberman. There’s also a culture of
militarism and jingoistic nationalism that’s beginning to infect even the
anti-war grassroots of the Democratic Party, as is evidenced by their bizarre
infatuation with right wing ex military men like Jim Webb.
In other words, on
ex-Republican millionaire securing the Democratic nomination for the Senate in
a small liberal northeastern state means very little. The Democratic Party’s
grassroots are putting all their eggs in Connecticut’s
basket. There is no national push to knock out pro-war Democrats. There is no
support for Jonathan Tasini on any of the big Democratic Party weblogs so
enthusiastic in their support for Ned Lamont. Robert Menendez, a co-sponsor of
the flag burning amendment, receives enthusiastic support on the Daily Kos and
on other liberal Democratic websites. Robert Casey, the anti-abortion, right
wing Democratic challenger to Rick Santorum will get no serious opposition.
While the Democratic Party’s elite will trumpet Ned Lamont as a reason to
abandon the anti-war movement, to give up organizing mass non-violent protest,
don’t listen to them.
Whatever the propaganda
coming from Democrats and the Democratic Party’s intellectual elites about how
‘protests don’t work’ or how ‘there can be no anti-war movement without a
draft’ or about how ‘people only act when it affects them personally’ or how
‘we can’t support the extremists of International Answer’ it’s clear that the
only real opposition to George Bush’s policies over the past 5 years has come from the anti-war movement, from mass protests
and from leftist radicals. We need to continue to support International Answer,
Cindy Sheehan, United for Peace and Justice and the anti-war movement in
general as they build mass rallies. But this isn’t enough in and of itself. The
anti-war movement has to take a step past simple opposition to the war and
coalesce around a position of driving George Bush and his whole regime out of
office. We need to evolve beyond protest to resistance.