8/14: Frame This

Whether UC Berkeley prof. George "Don't Think Of An Elephant" Lakoff will help or not, the same framing battle that's dominating the Dem/GOP MSM debate can be seen throughout the blogosphere. For those on the left, 11/06 is about Pres. Bush's failed Iraq policy and cong. unwillingness/inability to stand up to it. For the right, 11/06 is about the broader WOT and summoning the strength to meet the challenge on multiple fronts. In this sense, CT SEN offers the perfect microcosm for '06. Rebuffed by Dems, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has stepped up his rhetoric describing "the threat to American security and evil of the enemy that faces us - more evil, or as evil, as Nazism." It is often difficult to divide the blogosphere into left and right, but one's reaction to this statement is probably the best indicator available. We know where bloggers on all sides stand now, we'll find out about the American people in 11/06.

Their explanations may differ dramatically, but both left and right are both pessimistic about the strength of the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire and what it means for Israel in the long run. Under the header "Syria and Iran win big" Paul Mirengoff at Power Line sums up the sentiments of many on the right: "Syria and Iran have paid no price for their sponsorship of Hezbollah's aggression against Israel. To the contrary, both regimes have gained significantly in the eyes of the Arab world (and their own citizens) by virtue of having supplied the weapons that killed Israelis and having backed a force that had some success in resisting Israel's response. ... It seems to me that the Bush administration bears some of the responsibility for the triumph by Syria and Iran. Instead of working with the French to limit the damage that Israel could inflict on Hezbollah, perhaps the administration should have pushed for condemnation of, and sanctions against, the powers who supplied Hezbollah."

Right Wing News offers a minority perspective: "A lot of people on the right side of the blogosphere are calling this resolution a big win for Hezbollah. I think it's a bit murkier than that. After all, Israel did enormous damage to Hezbollah and their assets. Moreover, the UN resolution specifically calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed and for them to lose military control of Southern Lebanon. On top of all that, Israel still retains the right to attack Hezbollah for "defensive" reasons while Hezbollah is supposed to be constrained from attacking Israel at all."

On the left, Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly sees "little chance that this withdrawal can be pulled off without incident" but hopes Israel sees the tactical advantage in doing so: "They've made their point, they've significantly damaged Hezbollah's infrastructure, and the last thing they need now is to get stuck in southern Lebanon again."

Meanwhile, Stirling Newberry at TPM Cafe sees the conflict as "The Fall of the Israeli Empire" and writes: "While the UN votes for an "immediate cease fire", the war goes on. Israel's talking points are increasingly thin, and there are clear implications that the war will represent a significant blow to Israel's prestige. The big push seems to be an attempt to gain a political victory out of a military loss. Hezbollah has become one and the same with a Lebanese resistance, and is now a power center to be reckoned with. They are, for all intents and purposes, the most powerful armed force in Lebanon's politics."

Also at TPM Cafe, M.J. Rosenberg hopes Israel will apply current lessons to other problems: "Will this war only teach them lessons about being prepared militarily, about how they need better hardware, about the foibles of their politicians and generals -- or will they learn something even more important. That is to cut a deal with the Palestinians while they still can. Their vaunted "security wall" won't protect them if the Palestinians acquire katuyshas or other fairly sophisticated rockets. ... As for unilateral withdrawals, it is now clear that withdrawals which do not confer obligations on both sides won't do the job. The only security for Israel will come when it resumes negotiations with the Palestinians (i.e. any Palestinians who can deliver and will negotiate with them) toward a final status agreement."

The first post-primary 3-way poll released caused plenty of analysing in the blogosphere over the weekend. Rasmussen (EDITOR'S NOTE: Rasumussen is not a firm The Hotline recognizes for polling as their methodology is something we're not comfortable putting our name behind) puts the race at: Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) 46, Ned Lamont (D) 41, and gambler Alan Schlesinger (R) 6%.

First out of the spin box, Winston Smith at DailyKos: "Its still too early to poll on this race. I think it will take a week or two for the dust to settle before polls can start to capture what is going on in Connecticut. ... Lamont, the glorified winner of the primary, is now polling 41%. He has yet to benefit from the active help of the national Democratic party. When analysing the poll, we have to consider this to be Lamont's floor. Lieberman's support has dropped, and now stands at 46%. This is his ceiling. Assuming the GOP candidate gets at least 25% of the vote, a minimum in my opinion, Lieberman's numbers will drop significantly. In the next few weeks, it will become clear the Joe lacks the support he needs to stay competitive in the race."

Progressive Chris Bowers at MyDD has a lengthy analysis of the poll including: "As the Rasmussen poll shows, Lieberman's only hope to win in Connecticut is based not only on winning some Republican votes, but actually upon winning about 70% of Republican votes ... If a non-scandal plagued, even vaguely competent Republican were on the ballot, this campaign would already be over. ... It is time to strip Lieberman of his committee seats, and to freeze off his donors, lest they end up reflecting badly on the rest of the party in the wake of his disastrous plummet. For months, the DLC and the national punditry warned Democrats how bad they would look if they nominated Ned Lamont instead of Joe Lieberman. They may yet be proven right, but for different reasons than they claimed. Lieberman's continued downward spiral is going to be ugly and make him look even more pathetic than he looks now."

Jason Zengerle at TNR notes that "Half (52%) of Lamont voters believe Bush should be impeached and removed from office" and "the most surprising finding, though, is that Lamont's "very unfavorable" rating (23%) is actually higher than Lieberman's (18%)." Zengerle concludes: "Is it time for a reconsideration of that bear cub ad?"

James Zogby at The Huffington Post comments on his own poll of national Dem reaction to Lamont's victory: "A new Zogby Interactive poll shows he shouldn't waste too much time waiting by the mailbox. An overwhelming majority of Democrats - 79% - nationwide said they are glad that the three-term senator was defeated by Lamont, who ran a powerful anti-Iraq war campaign. They also said Lamont's victory over one of the few pro-war Democrats in Washington makes them optimistic they can win control of at least one of the two houses of Congress in November."

Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo "was ambivalent about the primary race, didn't have a horse in it" but after seeing Lieberman's "A win for Lamont will be a victory for the terrorists" quote Marshall fired off a message to his TPM Media staff: "I've always liked Joe, but with this 'victory for the terrorists', it's enough. [screw] him." Marshall writes: "Lieberman is not only running as the de facto Republican in the race, he's running as the worst sort of Republican, going on the trail claiming that any serious questioning of our policy in Iraq is a victory for the terrorists, even pulling in yesterday's terror plot take-down into his angle against Lamont. So it's not just about the independent candidacy any more. It's about him. Enough. Just leave."

The rest of the lefty blogosphere abandoned Lieberman long ago, including Mark Schmitt at TPM Cafe who did not like this recent Lieberman quote: "I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us - more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War." Schmitt comments: "I'm sorry, but this is just a deranged, or at best deeply confused and manic, thing to say. It shows a lack of perspective and reality and responsibility, even in its lack of clarity about what exactly the threat is and how to defeat it." DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas chimes in: "More evil than the guys who gassed 6 million Jews? More dangerous than the guys who had thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at us and could've snuffed out all life on the planet at the press of a button? Lieberman has lost it. Completely and utterly. He is insane."

Matt Stoller at MyDD picks up on a change of message from Lieberman's new "unity" commercial on Iraq and announces that immediate withdrawl from Iraq is not a reason to vote for Lamont: "Lieberman seems to be calling for an end to the war in Iraq, which is a newish place for him to go. He's already pandering to the voters by misrepresenting his position, since he wants to keep permanent military bases in Iraq. ... The thing is, policy differences on military strategy don't matter, since Senators do not set military strategy. If Ned Lamont is elected, and Democrats take the House and Senate, Donald Rumsfeld is still commanding our military. ... What matters is that Lieberman has never held the President accountable for failures in Iraq, and if reelected, will continue to give him a blank check for war profiteering, intelligence failures, incompetence, and outright dishonesty. Whether you seek a withdrawal or not, it's better to have a Senator who will challenge George Bush and his failed conservative policies. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents can all agree on that."

Conservative Bush critic Andrew Sullivan likes the idea of a McCain-Lieberman ticket despite "nanny-state issues" since "the alternatives are Christianism or Kossism."

Meanwhile RedState is keeping a running tab on Sen Dem support for Lamont/Lieberman:

For Lieberman (5): Carper, Inouye, Nelson (NE), Pryor, and Salazar.
For Lamont (19): Akaka, Bayh, Biden, Boxer, Cantwell, Clinton, Dodd,
Durbin, Feingold, Feinstein, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry,
Lautenberg, Menendez, Obama, Reid, Schumer, and Wyden.
Neutral (1): Lincoln.
Silent (18): Baucus, Bingaman, Byrd, Conrad, Dayton, Dorgan, Johnson,
Kohl, Landrieu, Leahy, Levin, Mikulski, Murray,
Nelson (FL), Reed, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, and Stabenow.

CT SEN IV: Fall Out Boy

Following their victory in CT progressive bloggers are demanding Sen Dems stand up to the Bush admin. foreign policy beginning with the confirmation of UN Amb John Bolton. Matt Stoller at MyDD writes: "You see, both Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton are considering switching their vote on Bolton, and there's probably a bunch of Senators who will follow them. Schumer in particular has been awful, publicly saying that there will probably be no filibuster of Bolton. So here we have a clear progressive electoral victory over the most right-wing Democrat, combined with a horrible year for Bush and a clearly disastrous foreign policy, and yet his nominee to the UN has an easier path to nomination. Why would Democrats even consider ratifying Bush's foreign policy through Bolton?"

Stoller then answers his own question: "Many of you will not like this answer, just as I didn't like discovering it, but the reality is that right-wing wealthy neoconservatives whose pet project is Israel are the ones who are forcing the Democrats to the right. After 9/11, a special breed of incredibly wealthy coastal elites that I call 'Bloomberg Democrats' after their desire to have Michael Bloomberg run on a third party Presidential unity ticket went sharply to the right in their foreign policy thinking. Lieberman is part of this group, always supportive of Israeli hawkishness, but whose fearful instincts were unleashed by 9/11. Torture, lies, dead soldiers, a collapse of American moral authority - all of these pale in comparison to Islamofascism, but it's cool, because they are pro-choice and made a lot of money. That's the type."

Meanwhile Natural Born Killers producer and progressive activist Jane Hamsher at firedoglake sets her sites on Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) for his suggestion that Lieberman's indy run could help CT Dem House candidates. Hamsher writes: "I guess it must be true that if Rahm loses the House he'll be rewarded with Pelosi's job after all, because I really can't think of a single other reason why he would say anything quite that obtuse. He's refused to call on Joe to pull out of the race and doesn't seem to acknowledge what everyone in Connecticut seems to be acutely aware of - the Democratic dream of November control of the House could go down in flames as a result of Joe's selfish, shortsighted and characteristically Republican-enabling actions.

IA conservative and WH '08 watcher Caucus Cooler enjoyed the 8/12 war of words between MS Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) staff over national security in the Boston Globe: "We at the Cooler are happy with Mitt for not taking any sh** from Horseface. Maybe John Kerry had devised a coherent national security message 2 years ago, his Communications Director wouldn't be making cheeky comments to the Boston Globe for a lame-duck wannabe President right now."

Pamela Leavey at The Democratic Daily has audio of a conference call with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in support of Iraq war veteran Patrick Murphy (D-PA) that was "hijacked" by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) CoS Mike Conallen who "challenged Murphy to a series of debates, which Murphy stated he had already agreed to." Kerry commented: "I find it rather fascinating that members of a campaign staff get on a press conference call and ask questions ... that's sort of a new tactic."

Conservative Captain's Quarters is no fan of comparison's between Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R). CQ writes: "Lieberman's voting record showed that he solidly supported his party on its agenda and policy. He consistently voted in the middle of his Senate caucus. In the Poole reports for the last three sessions, at least 15 Democrats voted more conservatively than Lieberman in each. The notion that a politician whose voting record remained almost dead center of his caucus could be out of touch with the Democratic mainstream is laughable on its face. ... Chafee presents a much different picture. In the last three sessions that comprises his entire last term of office, Chafee has consistently been the outlier of the GOP caucus. In two sessions, he managed to vote less with his caucus than a Democrat (Ben Nelson this session, Zell Miller in the 107th). Chafee can be described very reasonably as outside the mainstream of Republican thought

SusanG at DailyKos looks at a Christian Science Monitorarticle reporting that congressmen will spend the August recess gauging constituent opinion on the Iraq war and writes under the header "Let's help them out here in calibrating the intensity of our very public sentiment, shall we? Rattled by Lieberman's loss, it's quite possible our reps have ears that are finally ready to hear."

Also looking at Iraq war fallout from Lieberman's loss, Outside the Beltway defends VP Dick Cheney's recent comments linking Lamont's victory and the goals of al Qaeda: "Cheney was not saying that Lamont is on al Qaeda's side or that he is al Qaeda's candidate, as some MSM coverage portrayed but rather arguing that Lamont's desire to pull troops out of Iraq by a certain date is exactly what the terrorists want. And I don't see how anyone could argue to the contrary; that is, that the terrorists in Iraq wouldn't be happy if Lamont got his way. American troops out of Iraq is their stated goal, after all. ... Why is pulling out of Iraq the right thing do now, or, as Lamont would like, by the end of the year? How will this move help make Iraq safer, the Middle East safer, and the United States safer? How will it lead to more stability in the region? How will it help the fight against jihadism? And how will it not serve to embolden our enemies that have already concluded from events past that the United States doesn't have the stamina to endure a tough battle""

Randy Stapilus at left leaning Ridenbaugh Press looks at WA-05 and sees signs of a possibly larger movement:

A century and more ago, farmers and the other people of rural communities were in an almost riotous protest. They were being abused by powerful interests and social forces, these things could be addressed by politics, and they knew it, and they acted accordingly. They formed political parties, they did battle within political parties, they got leaders of major political parties (William Jennings Bryan, for one) to pay attention and take up their cause. They got radical and they got uppity. And partly as a result, their lot gradually improved in the early 20th century.

Much of rural America in a condition no less dire today, and a good many of the reasons are external and attributable to decisions made by politicians and leaders of various powerful interests.
One of the best places to consider this, and it the impact a rural revolt could prospectively have, is in Washington's 5th congressional district. ... The Washington 5th includes a large city, Spokane, and its surrounding area, and Spokane County accounts for almost two-thirds of the district's population. ... These rural counties - Adams, Asotin, Columbia, Garfield, Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lincoln, Spokane, Whitman, Walla Walla - are as a whole much more Republican than Spokane. A Democratic win in the 5th usually has been predicated on the idea of winnig strongly enough in Spokane to overcome the rest. But if - if - a populist revolt were to start out in the farm country and turn to a Democratic voting pattern, as has happened well back in our history, that calculus could be upended.

Actual evidence that this generation of rural people, in contrast to those of a century-plus ago, are willing to do more than complain isn't yet very apparent. But there is a national revolt underway, and if some of that spirit jumps to some of the rural communities in places like the 5th, who knows what kind of explosion that spark might bring about?

I Dislike Your Favorite Team continues its ongoing series of Redskin Cheerleader likes and dislikes this time with movies and found that the girls had multiple favorites including top vote getter "The Wedding Crashers." IDYFT comments:

That's a lot of votes for a movie that stops being funny after the first 45 minutes. No votes for: The 40 Year Old Virgin, The Legend of Ron Burgandy. 2 votes for Old School.

"What this says: Women--well, dumb women--think this movie a great comedy and a redemptive story about men who realize, eventually, there is more to [screwing] cold-crazy nymphos at weddings--there is also the marrying of them. Cheerleaders, dear Cheerleaders, this isn't a documentary. It's a pretty stupid comedy, with a bull[excrement] romantic comedy tacked on at the end, to appeal to guess who? YOU!"

Why I dislike the movie: Any movie that suggests we'll see Jane Seymour's taps and then doesn't deliver is on the side of the terrorists. Also, I believe Isla Fisher should be doing hardcore porn. At my house.