“Lieberman lost,” Kris told me today.
“Lost what?” I asked.
She fixed me with her gaze, shook her head, then ambled upstairs. “Lost what?” I called after her.
“I’m going to watch the news,” she muttered.
I went upstairs to watch the news with her. Apparently Joe Lieberman, Democratic Senator from Connecticut, lost a primary election. Connecticut has primaries in August? What are they smoking over there? “So what?” I said. “Who cares?”
“I’m not talking to you,” she said. I watched the rest of the Lehrer News Hour with her, and my questions were answered. Then I went downstairs to take a bath.
Kris came downstairs as I was soaking (and reading an article in Men’s Journal about the twelve greatest sports cars of all time). She pulled back the shower curtain and stared at me (and my fleshy lumps). “You know what the difference between you and Celeste is?” she asked. Celeste is her good friend and co-worker.
I thought for a moment. “I’m happy?” I said, hoping that was the right answer. I snuck a peak at the Corvette pictured in the article.
“No,” she said. “The difference between you and Celeste is that when I said to her this morning, ‘Lieberman lost,’ her reply was, ‘Omygod — are you kidding? How do you think this will affect the upcoming elections?’ When I said to you, ‘Lieberman lost,’ your reply was, ‘Lost what?’ That’s the difference between you and Celeste.”
I half-listened, half-read a great run-down on a classic Jaguar. “Huh,” I said. “I thought you were going to say the difference was that I was happy.”
“You know what? A duck is happy. A duck! A duck walks around all day oblivious to what’s going on in the world. That’s what you are: a duck. You’re a duck.”
I tossed my magazine onto the floor and slid back into the warm water. “Quack quack,” I said. Kris sighed and left the room.
We’re leaving for San Francisco in the morning. We won’t return for a couple weeks. I hope to be able to post while I’m gone, but no promises. Maybe we should have paid the housesitter to write weblog entries, too…
This made me laugh right out loud. I hope Kris isnt offended but really the way this is written up is downright..well..funny!
Me want write good guest bloggy!
who’s Joe Lieberman?
Yes, I’m joking.
I really like the way you and Kris interact, J.D. Cute, if I may be so free as to use that word, and funny, too. BTW, I was not happy that Joe Lieberman lost, either. It just seemed wrong to me somehow. Maybe he can go on to do a lot of good outside of politics, like Al Gore, though.
Maybe he can go on to do a lot of good outside of politics, like Al Gore, though.
He plans on being on the ballot as an independant in November and is currently the favorite.
In my opinion, that’s also probably the big reason he lost the primary. He was ahead by 20 points before he declared the primary system undemocratic, called the primary voters extremists, and announced his intention of being on the November ballot regardless of the outcome.
Of course, the pundits say it’s because of the war and mean people writing blog comments. What did they say on the News Hour?
Conventional wisdom doesn’t make much sense to me because moderate senators who supported the war are (in general) the most popular folks in the senate.
http://www.surveyusa.com/50State2006/100USSenatorApproval060725Approval.htm
Anyway, it looks to me like he’s just lousy at politics. He’s never had a real primary opponent and has always relied on finding center left compromise positions to win the general election. Problem is the republicans aren’t compromising much the last few years and it makes him look pretty weak.
Personally I don’t really hold the war against him (in spite of being against it from the moment Bush won the nomination). I think it was a real conviction of his. Some of his other compromises (bankruptcy, social security waffling, etc.) were less forgiveable as his primary purpose was apparently just to get a seat at the table.
blah, blah, political, blah, blah, blah.
What year was the jaguar?
Actually, I’m not sad that Lieberman lost. Although I agree with him that compromise is an essential part of good government, in my opinion, the Democrats in Congress have spent the last five years “compromising” because they don’t want to look soft on terror. I think it’s time for us to say that the Bush Administration’s decisions aren’t consistent with our country’s values, that we’re tired of spending $11 million an hour in Iraq when we could be tackling our own challenges in education, health care, clean energy, etc, and that our elected officials should show some vision, even if that means being called naive idealists. Lamont may not get elected, but he’s a fresh voice who is challenging the status quo. If I was registered in Connecticut, he’d have my vote.
I’m with Kris on this. I’m glad Lieberman lost because it tells the status quo politicians that we are NOT happy with the stupid crap that’s being peddled in our name on the world stage. Although I’m close to concluding that the western world is engaged in a war with extremist Islam, we’ve done absolutely everything we can to aggravate the situation except for bombing Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
And it’s high time that Congress, especially the Democrats, woke up and figured out that what we’re doing in the world is making us even more hated by the rest of the world and has very little to do with any realistic political benefit to the United States and it’s citizens and a whole lot to do with a monetary benefit to certain individuals and companies inside and outside the United States. Companies that have close ties to the energy business and our current administration. Let’s think about this for a second. Every major oil company has declared record profits for the last couple of years at a time when supposedly oil is at it’s highest price and the market is supposedly the most volitile because (the theory goes) it’s being taken from the Middle East where the situation is unstable and therefore it must cost more to get. Hmmmmmmmm. Area is unstable. Costs are higher. AND profits are recordbreakingly high (profits, not gross revenue, but profits- money left over after expenses). So even though costs are supposedly up, profits have gone through the roof. Why do you think that is?
Leaving the alarmist conspiracy theory aside, however, the United States has been a leader in the world for two reasons. First, we had bigger and better guns than everyone else. Second, we’d demonstrated that freedom and justice were the twin pillars of our society and that it didn’t matter who you were, you should have the right to those two things. What the war in Iraq has succeeded in doing, however, is demonstrating that we’re not really not all that great at taking care of business if a group of nut jobs with roadside bombs can succeed in killing and wounding nearly 25,000 of our troops (look it up, it’s hard to get those casualty numbers). Keep in mind that we’ve got approx 135,000 troops in Iraq. I’ll let you do the math on the casualty percentages. We’ve also shown that we’re either a) a completely gullible populace if we believed Bush on the WMD’s issue and therefore are too stupid for the world to trust, or b) complicit in Bush’s attempts to secure Iraq for global corporate interests, or c) Muslim hating bigots who really just want to kill non-judeochristian types. None of those really give a flattering portrait of the US and certaily have little to do with freedom or justive no matter how much Bush would like to rhetorically appeal to those twin pillars.
I weep for the US, I really do. At this point we’re shooting ourselves in the foot so well that by the time we figure it out the rest of the world may well let us just bleed to death. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’d blame them.
Things just got more exciting in CT as the GOP candidate may step aside for a moderate who is actually known statewide (Orchulli has announced his availability, but it’s really Schlessinger’s decision). I guess they think they have a good chance in a 3-way race. [Note to Lieberman: This is what undemocratic looks like — party big wigs replacing a primary-winning candidate a few months before the election]
The possibility of a GOP senator from Connecticut will likely get big name Dems to pressure Lieberman to sit it out.
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Yeah, the war itself is reason enough not to vote for Lieberman. It’s just the one issue I’m sure he’s honest, resolute, and apolitical on. Refreshingly wrongheaded.
At some point we’ll need people like Lieberman to bridge the gap, but he’s been played on education, healthcare, energy, environment, tax cuts. I really have no clue what he got in return. Promises on future legislation?
When the opposition’s open goal is 51 votes (and they’re willing to slip more tax cuts in to get it down there), being amenable to compromise just isn’t very smart. The steamroller of partisanship can’t be met with a handshake.