Could not find the original image online, but it's attributed to fark.com, so my guess is that it was a photoshop contest.
Makes me wonder whether Joe Lieberman has taken a hint from the playbook of the recent Roanoke City Council winners. Not assured of a win at the Democratic Party mass meeting, the "We are Democrat" independents went straight to the ballot. In a close election against conventional Democrats and Republicans, they won.
Now, the Hartford Courant's Mark Pazniokas, in his article today, "Lieberman Will Petition" quotes Lieberman at today's press conference about his decision to run as an "independent Democrat" even if he loses the August 8 primary:I've been a proud, loyal and progressive Democrat since John F. Kennedy inspired my generation of Americans into public service and I will stay a Democrat, whether I am the Democraitic party's nominee or a petitioning Democratic candidate on the November ballot.
Almost eerily, even before the announcement, the Courant published a commentary yesterday, "No Conservative: Lieberman's A JFK Democrat" by by Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and Steven J. Nider, director of foreign and security studies at the the DLC's think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute.
Joe Lieberman, more than any other national Democrat, represents the JFK tradition in the national Democratic Party
Call me cynical, but it smacks of Tass and the days of the politburo, this softening up pof the public, publishing Lieberman's sound bites before he even utters them. They continue,
Driven by a motley coalition of left-wing bloggers and the MoveOn.org crowd, a serious primary challenge has been launched against Lieberman. However, if Lieberman is defeated, a disastrous message would be sent to the nation that centrist hawks are unwelcome in the Democratic Party.
The Connecticut Senate primary is nothing short of a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. That is why outside left-wing groups have converged on this state.
Who needs Republican critics, when the Democrats can so shrilly talk about other members of their party this way?
The Nation's Joe Nichols counters today with "Joe Lieberman's Connecticut Problem."
Were Lieberman merely a predictable centrist Democrat, willing to mumble mild criticisms of the Bush administration's foreign policies but unwilling to make a serious break with the administration, he would not be worrying about the increasingly-viable Democratic primary challenge he faces from anti-war progressive Ned Lamont.
But Lieberman is not a predictable centrist. He is an in-the-pocket Bush man -- at least as far as the war in Iraq goes.
