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Archive for the 'Lamont v. Lieberman' Category

You So Crazy

Published by William Beutler on September 21, 2006 in Lamont v. Lieberman, MSM vs. Blogs, Netroots and Washington Post. 3 Comments

At the risk of giving over this week’s blogging entirely to surveying opinions about bloggers by writers for the Washington Post Co., two more caught my attention today. First there’s David Broder in this morning’s Post (though of course available at Post.com last night), lamenting the polarization of politics in Washington and touting apparent countervailing forces:

Now … you can see the independence party forming — on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society — the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left and the doctrinaire religious extremists on the right who would convert their faith into a whipping post for their opponents.

And in a dispatch filed late this afternoon, Slate’s John Dickerson described Hugo Chávez’s United Nations speech thusly:

“It smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of,” he said, as he stood at the U.N. lecturn where Bush spoke the day before. It was hard to tell which was stranger, that the United Nations had let a blogger take control of the podium, or that the delegates who are famously comatose and unresponsive during General Assembly speeches stirred themselves to applaud the diatribe.

Broder is referring specifically to the Lamontsters, while Dickerson didn’t bother to make any ideological distinctions. What’s to be gleaned from this? Not much, really. It shouldn’t be news to anyone that bloggers are viewed skeptically by the mainstream reporters they so frequently criticize. Nor should conservative bloggers be surprised they’re easily lumped in with their more widely-covered counterparts. I do find these references somewhat annoying, but the stereotypes didn’t come out of thin air. And will the bloggers-are-crazy meme ever go away? I certainly have my doubts.

As for WaPoCo’s third major property, Newsweek, there’s nothing especially notable from them blog-wise today — although I am at least a little disappointed to see they appear to have discontinued their blog roundup.

The Blog Post Is Half-Full

Published by Olly Ruff on September 7, 2006 in Blog Fights, Democrats, Lamont v. Lieberman and Relaunches. 2 Comments

As impatiently anticipated in this space on Tuesday, the Lieberman ‘06 blog has been loosed upon the world. Despite the admonishments of Atrios, as backed up by DavidNYC and other luminaries, the comments are filling up briskly with anti-Joe sentiment. (Albeit nowhere near as fast as Atrios’ own threads.)

Alas, the only real entertainment to be had is in speculating on the layers of identity within the commentariat. Which are paid stooges from the Lieberman campaign, posting deliberately incendiary remarks to make the Lamont campaign look bad? Which are volunteer stooges from the Lamont campaign, posting obviously amateurish incendiary remarks to make the Lieberman campaign look like they’re planting deliberately incendiary remarks? How many different people are posting as “Ann Coulter,” and are they all on the same side?

The site’s design is fairly dreary, and the sense that has characterized the 2006 Lieberman campaign — that of expectations cruelly dashed — is ably captured by the policy of having every post contain a “Read The Full Blog Post” link, even when (as is frequently the case) there is no more blog post to read. Meanwhile, the tireless exuberance of the comment posse is beginning to resemble that of an unruly high-school class, and within a few posts the blog itself had devolved into the very thing Atrios originally predicted: singling out random anonymous commenters as being representative of the Lamont campaign. (The approved neologism for this is nutpicking. I am more or less resigned to it, but am going to hold out for as long as possible in the hope that someone can come up with something equally clever but less overtly anatomical.)

By all rights this should be hilarious, but for some reason it makes me feel sad instead. Perhaps it’s a seasonal thing.

Caught In A Trap And I Can’t Back Out ‘Cause I Hate You Too Much, Baby

Published by Olly Ruff on September 5, 2006 in Campaigns, Lamont v. Lieberman and Website Design. 4 Comments

Atrios pointed out yesterday — for the purposes of warning people away from it, so without an accompanying link — the relaunch of the Lieberman campaign blog (or alleged blog), scheduled for today. (As of 4:30 PM EDT, the new Lieberman site is still completely dead. This is not the only respect in which the Lieberman campaign could learn from Phoenix Suns G Raja Bell, who at least managed a countdown timer.)

It will certainly be an accomplishment for the Lieberman campaign to have a presence in the ’sphere that (we devoutly hope) doesn’t use a default Blogger template, so this is already a big step forward from the L/L primary. However, this quote from Atrios deserves attention:

A reminder that the Lieberman blog is apparently going live tomorrow. It’s basically going to be a trap to entice people to say mean things about the Last Honest Man so they can go whine to the press about how mean everyone is unlike Stay the Course Joe.
Ah, yes. A “trap” to “entice” otherwise reasonable people to say “mean things” about Joe Lieberman. If there’s one thing the leftosphere has been short on this year, it’s people flying off the handle about Joe Lieberman. Were I working for Joe ‘06, the first thing I’d be looking for would be a cunning scheme to get bloggers to break cover and let their true feelings show.

Seriously, it could be argued that Lieberman has the worst profile in the leftosphere of anyone, ever, including George W. Bush. A trap designed to accomplish this goal would presumably resemble… a keyboard?

Update: Having given this some more thought, maybe a keyboard with a big neon sign pointing at it.

Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With This One?

Published by Olly Ruff on August 24, 2006 in Campaigns, Daily Kos, Lamont v. Lieberman, National Politics and RNC. 3 Comments

Unintended amusement abounds at this GOP press release, which is either an attempt to damage the Lamont CT SEN campaign by linking it to Daily Kos or vice versa. To a devotee of attack journalism and smear campaigns, it’s a rather unsatisfying document; we carry no brief for Kos here, but when the slings and arrows are this poor — or this poor — it’s hard not to remark upon it.

After a puzzling focus on the fact that Markos Moulitsas apparently went on holiday this summer and has recently returned, the release warms up by collecting a few of Kos’ pricklier comments — the infamous “Screw ‘em,” etc — and chides him for calling Joe Lieberman a “sore loser.” If you recall the “Sore Loserman” meme from 2000, they’re not really on very firm ground here.

As is typical of the form, the sourcing varies from overzealous to non-existent: the Las Vegas Review-Journal is invoked to establish that there might just be some kind of a connection between the blog “Daily Kos” and the convention “Yearly Kos” — or, possibly, to establish the unthinkably controversial statement that dKos is “left-leaning” — whereas the statement

MOULITSAS’ NEW JOB: CO-CHAIR OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
just sort of hangs there in space. At best, we get deft mischaracterization, whereby
“I know it’s not the most popular thing to say, but the French are right. You don’t win wars against terrorism on the battlefield.”
is summarized as:
Moulitsas On Fighting Terrorism: “The French Are Right.”
and the fun game — good for any high-traffic site of any political affiliation — in which the site’s proprietor is criticized for the ridiculous or offensive statements of their commenters or diarists. The rest of the time we’re left with their amusingly obstinate refusal to say “Democratic Party,” the assertion that two thirds of the “Democrat” leadership “fled to” Yearly Kos, and the off-message allegation that dKos is an “out-of-the-mainstream blog,” which is less defensible even than it is comprehensible. As far as the leftosphere is concerned, dKos built the mainstream — and that’s exactly the criticism the RNC would presumably wish to wield against blogs of the left.

Of course, the point is not that the RNC shouldn’t be trying to drum up bad publicity about Kos and his blog. The point is that they really should be doing a much, much better job than this. What’s more, if they really are intending this as the first shot in an ongoing campaign (see “Lieberman v. Lamont” halfway down the page, see also here) then it’s especially alarming. One assumes their next salvo will include an informative paragraph explaining what “web log” means.

Monday Medley: Joe Lieberman, JonBenet, Raw Story, Katherine Harris and The Apocalypse

Published by William Beutler on August 21, 2006 in Comment Sections, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, Midterms '06, Republicans and Seriously. 2 Comments

Nothing really stands out today, so here’s a brief, likely unrepresentative trip around the political mediasphere:

  • If it hasn’t been said before, allow me to be the first: Raw Story’s comment boards are basically the mirror image of LGF’s.

  • In the bizarre case of semi-prominent libertarian blogger Jackie Mackie Paisley Passey, who drew much attention and much, much derision for an exceedingly arrogant post declaring just how desirable everyone must agree she is, one of the more eye-rolling aspects was her boast that one of her public photos had rated an 8.6 on Hot or Not. Yes, you read that correctly. Without an ounce of irony, she uploaded a photograph of herself to Hot or Not — and evaluated her self-worth based on the results.

    So… here I may be overstepping the bounds of good sense, if not propriety, but I took another public photo from her page and uploaded it to that very same shallow website. If you’re curious to know how she’s doing, well, have a look and rate it yourself.

    It may well be cruel to pile on at this point, and I don’t wish her ill, but it is still relevant, and my best defense is that I’m just holding her to her own standards.


  • The New York Times’ Kurt Eichenwald, who must have drawn the short straw to end up on the pedo beat, had another icky story ready to go today, just as John Mark Karr was en route to Los Angeles in a business class seat on Thai Airlines. This bit jumped out at me:

    In recent months, new concerns have emerged about whether the ubiquitous nature of broadband technology, instant message communications and digital imagery is presenting new and poorly understood risks to children.

    Um, do the last 120 months count as “recent”? Meanwhile at Hullabaloo, Digby asks:

    Considering this new awareness of the use of overly sexualized visual images of children by pedophiles, why has nobody taken the networks to task for repeatedly showing those Jon Benet beauty pageant videos ten years after the fact?

    Good question. I asked a similar question following Jane Hamsher’s deployment of that inflammatory Lieberman-in-blackface picture. If it was wrong for her to post it, what about everyone else who used it afterward? Is context really everything?


  • Josh Marshall is taking flak from readers and more than one fellow blogger for not being anti-Lieberman enough. As are others of his readers.

    The WSJ’s James Taranto has an amusing take:

    They said they would be greeted as liberators for toppling the old regime. Instead, they find themselves caught in a quagmire — a vicious, unwinnable civil war with incalculable costs in both resources and prestige. We refer, of course, to the Democrats in Connecticut.

    His proposed solution keeps the analogy going, but doesn’t make any sense:

    It looks as though Lieberman is in the race to stay — but there is an answer to the Democrats’ quandary. For the good of the party, Lamont could throw his support to Lieberman. This would leave the incumbent running essentially unopposed … allowing the Democrats to concentrate on beating Republicans. Lamont could declare that he made his point by winning the primary, but his own ambitions are less important than the party. He could then redeploy, going on the road with Lieberman, campaigning for Democratic House challengers in Connecticut and for Democratic Senate candidates elsewhere. Rather than stay in a race he is likely to lose, Lamont could prove he understands his own dictum: ”Stay the course’ is not a winning strategy.’

    Taranto frequently turns to jokes when he doesn’t actually have anything to add, and though he is undoubtely behind Lieberman in this race, this is probably one of those all-too-frequent circumstances. With the primary decided, the only candidate who has any business thinking about abandoning the race is Joe Lieberman. That said, it probably would work.


  • More or less along the same lines: I’m not one to praise recent Firedoglake addition Pachacutec — he’s Jane Hamsher without the Hollywood background — but his call for Stephen Colbert to have Conn. Senate Republican nominee Alan Schlesinger on the show is inspired.

  • The connoisseur of schadenfreude in me really hopes Katherine Harris runs for office again soon. What else is left of me declines to comment.

  • If Blog P.I. isn’t updated tomorrow, here’s maybe one reason why.

Revisiting The YouTube Election

Published by William Beutler on August 20, 2006 in Blogging Officials, Campaigns, George Allen, Lamont v. Lieberman, MSM and YouTube. 1 Comment

I was a bit grumpy when Slate’s John Dickerson covered the rising prominence of YouTube in political campaigns as if he was the first person to think of it, but now that it’s Ryan Lizza’s turn to remark upon same for the New York Times, I think it’s time to accept that it’s conventional wisdom already (fast, maybe even faster than YouTube’s own meteoric rise). After all, the Times is nothing if not a lagging indicator.

Lizza doesn’t add a whole lot to the discussion, though he does wring his hands in a manner of which previous commentators have declined:

Some political analysts say that YouTube could force candidates to stop being so artificial, since they know their true personalities will come out anyway. “It will favor a kind of authenticity and directness and honesty that is frankly going to be good,” said Carter Eskew, a media consultant who worked for Senator Lieberman’s primary campaign. “People will say what they really think rather than what they think people want to hear.” But others see a future where politicians are more vapid and risk averse than ever. Matthew Dowd, a longtime strategist for President Bush who is now a partner in a social networking Internet venture, Hot Soup, looks at the YouTube-ization of politics, and sees the death of spontaneity.

I don’t know the answer to this question; my fallback response is: Some of both. More interesting, I think, is why the two consultants split on the question. Some might guess that Democrats are quicker to embrace new campaign techniques whereas Republicans are slower to deem them necessary, and there may be some truth to that. The GOP had no GOTV strategy to speak of until 2002, although they’ve more than caught up since.

But I think it has less to do with party ideology than recent party (or factional) fortunes, and you’re more likely to embrace (and talk up) a new technology if you need it to deliver for you. In 2004, Dowd helped fend off an unprecedented new media assault on President Bush, so he’s got all the more reason to downplay its positive effects. But there’s also iconoclasts like John McCain, who face uphill battles inside the Republican party, and as of late has been courting conservative online activists to that end.

What interesting things Lizza does have to say about YouTube’s impact is arguably just as true about mere text-based blogging:

These days journalists are concerned not just about being cut out, but about being part of the show. Reporters often suffer the wrath of bloggers in the same way politicians do. At a recent conference of political bloggers in Las Vegas, reporters more than once reminded one another to be discreet in their conversations because anything overheard was fair game for bloggers to post. Now, as the campaign trail turns into a 24-hour live set, members of the press corps may find themselves starring on YouTube. “At least one big-time journalist will have their career or life ruined because some element of their behavior that was heretofore private will be exposed publicly,” predicted a senior adviser to a potential 2008 presidential candidate.

If you think YouTube is necessary for that, well, tell that to Dan Rather.

And Lizza’s “to be sure” section is particularly weak:

Then again, YouTube’s impact on politics may be exaggerated. For one, the site’s users are generally young and not highly engaged politically. “Most social networking sites cater to younger audiences, 18 to 24,” says Michael Bassik, vice president of Internet advertising at MSHC Partners, which advises candidates on media strategies. “For the most part, it’s not political conversations taking place there.” And maybe the Allen video wasn’t all that shocking after all. Jeff Jarvis, author of the BuzzMachine blog and an Internet consultant to The New York Times Company, doesn’t think all that much has changed. “Is it news that politicians say stupid things?” he asks. “Of course not.”

As for the former point, arguing that just because political videos don’t draw the same traffic as, say, that especially compelling video where a young woman took one picture of herself each day for three years is a straw man if I’ve ever seen one (and I suspect Lizza has quoted Bassik out of context). All such a video has to do is be “out there,” and YouTube undoubtedly accomplishes that.

As for the latter, well, tell that to Senator Allen.

P.S. Ohio’s Psychobilly Democrat makes a similar argument to that of my penultimate paragraph, noting: “The networked natured of blogs, that one links to another’s content, makes the blunders more accessible to more people across greater ranges of space.” To which I would add, it’s more evidence that all politics is national.

Today, Blog P.I.; Tomorrow, Slate

Published by William Beutler on August 15, 2006 in Blogs vs. MSM, Campaigns, Earned Media, Lamont v. Lieberman and YouTube. 1 Comment

On Monday afternoon John Dickerson covered the extensive use of YouTube by anti-Lieberman bloggers, territory that Blog P.I. happened to cover over a week ago.

This illustrates a problem for writers in the era of the web: It’s incredibly difficult to be the first person to write about something. The sheer number of worthwhile blogs out there also reduces the chances that whomever really was first gets any credit for it at all. And I am absolutely not referring to myself: In fact, more than a week before I wrote about the YouTube-ing ways of the so-called Lamontsters, a non-partisan Conn. blog had already discussed the phenomenon.

And you know who else beat us, this time by only a matter of hours? One of Dickerson’s own colleagues, who didn’t get a hat tip from him, either.

Update: Rolling Stone, somehow completely oblivious of the Lamont-Lieberman primary, is declaring the Va. Senate general election “The First YouTube Election,” on account of Sen. George Allen’s YouTelevised “Macaca” gaffe (about which more later).

“I Don’t Know Anything About the Blogs”

Published by William Beutler on August 11, 2006 in Blogging Officials, Democrats, Lamont v. Lieberman, Midterms '06, Netroots and Primary fights. 2 Comments

In a characteristically counterintuitive piece for TNR.com, Ryan Lizza argues that the “second half” of Lamont/Lieberman will fade as a national issue because, as an unnamed DSCC insider tells him, the national party isn’t going to busy itself much with Connecticut this fall:

Why would we spend money defending a seat that will be blue either way?

Later, a different (I think) Senate aide tells him the primary won’t induce Democrats to campaign on immediate withdrawal from Iraq, either:

Our Iraq policy has been driven by [Harry] Reid and [Carl] Levin. To be honest, they could give a rat’s ass about the blogs. In other words, these are policy-based decisions, and aren’t driven by the politics of Connecticut or anywhere else.

Not even a rat’s ass? Really? That might come as a surprise to the readers and commenters at Reid’s Give Em Hell, Harry blog, among the most popular blogs written by an elected Democratic official — almost up there with Conyers Blog, written (or “written”) by a more traditional netroots ally.

It also calls to mind Lamont’s absurd defenestration of Jane Hamsher late last week, for which he apparently paid no price in terms of blogger support (even from Hamsher). And let’s not forget Dem consultant Steve Elmendorf, who paid the ultimate price — excommunication from the left by Markos Moulitsas — for daring to admit:

The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections. The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.

And what happens if Lizza is right, the Democrats give nothing more than lip service to Lamont, and the Conn. Senate race fades from the national scene? How vocal will the netroots be about their dissatisfaction? How damaging would that be to blogger-politician relations? Might Chuck Schumer, chairman of the DSCC, be the next pariah Democrat — or at least the next Rahm Emanuel?

Could it be that what seemed less than 100 hours ago like the first major gate-crashing will actually end up building more barriers between Beltway Democrats and the party’s online activists?

Upon Further Review, John Aravosis Is Only Half-Unserious About National Security

Published by William Beutler on August 11, 2006 in Blog Fights, Democrats, Lamont v. Lieberman, Midterms '06, National Security, Republicans and Terrorism. 15 Comments

I first ran across John Aravosis’ take on the British terror arrests via Conn Carroll in yesterday’s Blogometer. Carroll quoted Aravosis asking:

[I]sn’t it queer that the emergency [red alert on U.S. airlines] is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

Aravosis frames the events of the last 48 hours as the White House surreptitiously moving against against a) the Democratic party, and b) American business travelers. That Bush is using Lieberman’s defeat against Democrats, and second, that he’s imposing stifling aviation rules without justification. (Aravosis’ judgment on the credibility of the Scotland Yard-scotched terror plot has evolved, which I’ll get to a bit later.)

Look, I agree the color-coded system is capricious and unhelpful to the public, and if the no-water on airplanes policy persists past a few weeks, I’ll join him in decrying that (I would also endorse the notion that the shoe-checks have outlived their usefulness, though they were useful at first). But in dysfunctional government policy and hardball politics he sees actual malice. Take this post, filed early yesterday afternoon:

In today’s NY Times, Dick Cheney warned that the Lieberman loss would embolden “Al Qaeda types.” It is reasonable to assume that Cheney, like Bush, knew about the unfolding scandal in Great Britain. Think about this for a minute. It shows how evil the Bush/Cheney team really is. Knowing that this story was about to break, Cheney invoked Al Qaeda in purely political terms.

Cheney and Aravosis are actually making the same mistake on purpose, and both for political reasons. They both purport to believe that “al Qaeda types” are even following the primary defeat of a hawkish opposition party member, so they can politicize the war, for dovishness and calculation.

But what ground rules would Aravosis put on Cheney’s discussion of foreign policy matters? Only if he promises not to mention Democrats? Not within 15 days of an election? Aravosis isn’t criticizing the substance of Cheney’s remarks, but instead that he made any remarks at all.

And I don’t have time to check and see if Aravosis has criticized Bush for calling terrorists “evil,” but if thinking strategically about approaching elections is “evil,” then I don’t know what you’d call Jack Abramoff.

Flash forward to this morning, where Aravosis starts walking back from his verdict on the terror arrests yesterday: That the threat was not legitimate, and the U.S./British reaction was wildly overblown. Conservative bloggers seized on his coments — see Stephen Bainbridge and Pejman Yousefzadeh, plus George Gooding with a bigger picture view — identifying it as more evidence that the left-wing blogosphere is unserious about terrorism, as charged. Carroll put a “tin-foil hat” on him; earlier this week, Jacob Weisberg made a similar argument, saying Ned Lamont’s supporters “appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously.”

And Aravosis even wrote it like he knew he was mistaking bad timing as a conspiracy:

Do I sound as if I don’t believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don’t believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an “Al Qaeda footprint.” Ooh, are you scared yet? What that really means is that they found NO evidence whatsoever that the plot had anything to do at all with Al Qaeda, but the plot simply made them think “gosh, this is something Al Qaeda would do.” That’s what a footprint means. Nice, but no cigar.

That’s increasingly untenable, as more information comes out and more arrests are made. Today Aravosis writes:

Intelligence successes are generally more effective when they remain private, but of course if a threat still exists, and can be minimized through public disclosure, that’s a legitimate reason for exposure. Still, considering the past (and present) political use of terror threats, I think skepticism about timing and motives is understandable. They boy who cried wolf writ large.

Well, that’s better. Still, he doesn’t really address his previous exculpation of previous U.S. terrorism arrests:

Were these guys totally innocent? Probably not. But there’s no reason to believe they were any more Osama’s right-hand than Jose Padilla, the famed dirty-bomber who I think is now only being charged with jay-walking or something. Then there were the famous six Muslim-American guys in New York state, supposedly operating their own al Qaeda cell. Not so much. Or how about the Al Qaeda cell in Florida trying to blow up the Sears Tower? Oh that’s right, they were just some demented friends squatting in a warehouse and “thinking” about it. And then there’s the famous plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge - with a single blow torch.

Padilla didn’t get very far as a prospective terrorist, but the legal battle surrounding him has been about how to handle al Qaeda arrestees, not about whether he committed conspiracy to commit jaywalking. In the case of the Buffalo Six, all six were convicted of providing material support to al Qaeda, and one was later killed by a U.S. Hellfire missile in Yemen. He identifies correctly the Miami case as one where there really was no case, and I’ll grant him that. Hey, I’ll even throw in Joel Hinrichs, the Sooner Boomer, the suicidal Oklahoma sudent who detonated himself outside Memorial Stadium during a football game in 2005, of whom conservative bloggers fanned many erroneous rumors. But as for the Brooklyn Bridge, I’m not sure where “a single blow torch” comes from, but Iyman Faris knew Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and he too was convicted.

Besides, there’s no proof that the 7/7 suicide bombers received practical support from Osama bin Laden either, but they were deadly nonetheless.

It’s more problematic that he doesn’t mention Richard Reid [Update: Spelling corrected; see this comment] or Lockerbie. Maybe terrorists haven’t had much luck with blowtorches or crop dusters, but for Aravosis to leave out all previous terrorist attacks involving planes in favor of other, lesser examples of terrorist attempt or intent, while blithely dismissing those and mangling the facts, sure, it’s fair to say that John Aravosis, for one, is not very serious about terrorism.

I will at least allow that he is serious about his opposition to Bush because he disagrees strenuously with his national security policy. I just don’t think Aravosis has any idea what to replace it with, and he’s not above sticking to bad conclusions that make Republicans out to sound as bad as possible.

P.S. Jim Treacher asks: “Why do the beverages hate us?” Along with other clever lines that would’ve made a good header to this post. [Update: He's now hosting a poll asking: What do we call this un-quenching imbroglio?]

P.P.S. Greetings, Instapundit readers! Is there a better Instalanche than a pre-lunch time link before the professor heads to class (I presume) for three hours? Nay, I believe there is not. Well, maybe on a Monday.

It’s Not Whether You Win Or Lose…

Published by William Beutler on August 9, 2006 in Campaigns, Election Night, Lamont v. Lieberman and Midterms '06. 0 Comments

Can it really be that as yet only one writer in the political mediasphere, bloggers or journalists, has thought to compare Joe Lieberman’s Tuesday night concession speech non-concession:

As I see it, in this campaign we just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead. But, in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November.

With his infamous 2004 New Hampshire primary self-delusion:

We are in a three-way split decision for third place!

Apparently so. Beating me to the punch is none other than David Sirota:

You may recall that after he was crushed in the New Hampshire primary, he proudly boasted that “we are in a three-way split decision for third place” — as if he really thought voters were stupid enough to think that was a good thing and that he was well on his way to winning the nomination. Similarly, today he is claiming that the Democratic Party primary election is just the “first half” of the election process — again, thinking voters are so stupid they don’t see that what he’s really doing is giving the big middle finger to American democracy.

I wouldn’t call Lieberman’s stubborn refusal to admit the obvious after the first primary a “middle finger to American democracy,” but it strikes me as a valid argument this time around.

The comparison is reason enough for me to believe that, despite the rumors, Lieberman will stay in this one to the bitter end. And really, no matter what happens, bitter is how it will be.

P.S. If that wasn’t reason enough, this might be.