I wonder what psychedelics led Dana Milbank to feel the need to pen this love letter to Joe Lieberman. I mean, I don’t really dispute that Lieberman has always been a pain in the ass. But, so what? Why defend him?
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Why do you take Dana Milbank seriously? He’s a scribe who’s fully internalised the corruption of the imperial capital, like so many others. He may find a nugget every few months. That will be notable, most of the weekly output, not so much.
Dana is part of the Village willing to close ranks around any threat to the status quo love fest that goes on between “grown ups” like Lieberman and McCain who are treated with respect despite displaying little to no knowledge of policy or concern for public opinions.
Is anyone else watching the explosive diary by Al Franken on dkos? Jane Hamsher and her followers have really tapped into that special breed of liberal that agree with the right and want their leaders to rule by dictate.
Don’t overstate your case.
The diary about Al Franken is from one of over 200,000 posters on dKos. Someone who is just bent a little too much out of shape over the Senate bill and just a little too fearful that it will mean a Republican resurgence or a sellout to big business.
And Hamsher has been driven by the sense that the search for a deal has overwhelmed the attempt to put pressure on for a strong public option. And a little miffed at the propensity to kick the progressives in the base instead of build on their strengths.
The left-right coalition is about the restoring integrity to the Federal Reserve System and denying the reconfirmation of Ben Bernanke, who completely missed the financial collapse coming and who now is a deficit scold who wants to kill Social Security and Medicare in order to pay off the debt.
And what Jane Hamsher has pointed out is that the populist left and the populist right have a number of issues on which there is agreement. By far the biggest one is financial industry reform. A second one is the unpalatability of individual mandates; Hamsher would add the conditional “without meaningful premium cost controls”.
Given the public opinion on the public option, it seems that Congress is intent on ruling by dictate. Hamsher and others expect Democratic leaders, including President Obama to rule on behalf of the public. That’s all.
Jane is going to bring us to that perfect world. Finally, it’s going to happen!
Well to clarify I’m not talking about Hamsher in terms of desired outcomes (I think we all want the strongest bill possible), I’m talking about the way she approaches activism (as both a leader and participant) and the methods through which she wants the leaders to act.
Congress isn’t “ruling by dictate” so much as muddling through and trying to skirt past a controversial issue, in fact the idea of “ruling” is the wrong framing for how the government works. The President, and most of the Democratic caucus, are acting on the behalf of the nation and its citizens (though imperfectly). Their efforts to get things done are hamstrung by the Republicans and their use of the filibuster, and some of the obstinate conservatives with whom they have to cut every deal with in order to cross the 60 vote line.
OT – sorry I have a really dumb question if anyone can help me. On Andrew Sullivan’s blog The Daily Dish is there a place for reader comments? It’s such an odd site and I can’t see where there are comments but he’s always talking about how much reader feedback he gets.
Sullivan doesn’t have a comment section, he (and his support team)respond to emails and occasionally post them or topics generated from them.
ok thanks so much. rather odd but good to know!