Lieberman Has Spoken

The "independent" Senator from Connecticut insults half the country by calling on everyone to vote for Senator McCain as the candidate who puts the country first, as if he was certain that Senator Obama would not. He accuses Obama of partisanship, comparing him unfavorably with the arch-compromiser, President Clinton, and in the process applauding those Clinton-era measures that led many people to conclude that there was no meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans. He condescendingly praises Obama as a gifted "young man" who could do great things for the country in the future, presumably so long as he takes his cues from unpartisans like Lieberman and submits to the will of John McCain. This is an extraordinary election, he says, because these are extraordinary times (i.e., "we are a nation at war"), and he assures us that McCain is an extraordinary man. No one will dispute it, but "extraordinary" is really a value-free term. He calls on Americans to come together behind a party that doesn't believe in bringing people together for anything but prayer and warfare; otherwise, "every man for himself" is the Republican rule. He promises that "Washington" can't pen in the mighty mavericks, McCain and Palin, but aren't the "maverick" Republicans, the "outsiders" like Reagan and Dubya, the ones who end up expanding government and turning a blind eye to corruption and waste? He sycophantically identifies McCain with the national interest, as if the Arizonan defined it or even embodied it, so that Lieberman was literally crawling up McCain's sphincter. Finally, he wastes everybody's time when he could have said what he meant most succintly by standing on the stage and screaming, "WAR!!!"