Of all the absurdities about the misguided campaign to purge Joe Lieberman from the Democratic Party, the most striking of the moment is how many bloggers and activists from outside Connecticut authoratatively proclaim to know just what Democrats in the state believe.I'd heard rumors to this effect in the past, but I thought Sirota's job-seeking with the Connecticut moderate might have been one of those long-ago things, possibly involving the Senate office. The idea of David Sirota working for Lieberman's presidential campaign in 2003 rather boggles the mind. Gerstein doesn't say why Sirota wasn't hired -- but now that the gloves are off between these two, it's hard to imagine that this will be the last revelation in what is turning into an increasingly nasty and personal race.For example, over the July 4th weekend, the Hartford Courant published an op-ed from a young operative and blogger named David Sirota, who told Connecticut Democrats like me that Lieberman didn't represent us. In fact, Sirota went a step further, and ludicrously argued that Lieberman was not just outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party, but of the American people.
Now what standing and credibility does Sirota have to make either claim? Well, he spent most of his limited adult life working in Washington -- including a stint with the lone socialist in Congress -- before moving to Montana. To my knowledge, the closest he's come to spending any meaningful time in Connecticut is interviewing for a job in Joe Lieberman's Senate office (with yours truly) and in his Presidential campaign in 2003.
Yes, that's right: the same guy who is viciously attacking Joe Lieberman as the great Satan of the Democratic Party actually sought not one but two jobs from the target of his hatred, and did so at time when all of the supposed sins that Sirota is attacking Lieberman for now were well known. The polite term for that would be chutzpah. Some one less charitable might call Sirota a fraud. [Italics added.]
UPDATE: LIEBERMAN'S PEOPLE CALLED HIM (HE SAID NO THANKS): David Sirota posts an extremely persuasive -- and detailed -- counter-narrative about what his talks with Lieberman's office were really all about:
Here�s what really happened folks: In 2003, after I had just arrived at the Center for American Progress, I received inquiries from various Lieberman staffers about a press job, and whether I would come in to chat with them - and possibly the Senator - in preparation for Lieberman�s presidential run. Obviously, they knew who I was and what kind of serious progressive politics I represented, as evidenced by Gerstein�s derisive reference today to the fact that I served �a stint with the lone socialist in Congress� (aka. progressive champion Bernie Sanders). I figured Lieberman might have been considering a reform of his politics back to the old days when he was far more progressive, and that they wanted me to discuss progressive strategy with them. What other reason would Lieberman people call me and ask me to chat with them?I'd say that Sirota makes it pretty clear that working for Lieberman in 2003 would have boggled his mind, too.An eternal optimist in the ability of people to see the fault of their ways and change, I agreed to the meeting and had a very cordial interaction with Lieberman�s chief of staff, Clarine, and then held my nose for a meeting with the notoriously arrogant Gerstein. They seemed interested in having me work for them in some capacity, they made clear Lieberman was going to run his campaign on the themes of undermining the Democratic Party from the right. Over the next few days, I discussed the interaction with a bunch of folks at the Center for American Progress, including my boss John Podesta. And after a few days, I decided I simply was totally uncomfortable with the concept of working for Lieberman, that his staff showed no signs that they were interested in being progressive team players, and that as a committed progressive, it would be wrong for me to go to work for Lieberman. So, via email and phone, I respectfully declined the offer to chat further with them, as I didn�t want to waste any more of their time (And by the way, you�ll notice that in his post, Gerstein doesn�t say why I didn�t end up working for Lieberman - his silence on this matter is incriminating: he doesn�t say it because telling folks that I told them a flat no would expose his whole story as a lie).
More importantly, from an electoral perspective, this new pro-Lieberman blog effort is too little, too late. It's like Lieberman's defenders just woke up or something, after sleepwalking through the last three years, and now, groggy, they are looking for some way to defend their guy, without realizing how very late in the game it is actually is for him.
UPDATE II: Gerstein responds to Sirota, and Sirota blogs back. Charges of bad faith all around.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
