WHAT LIEBERMAN APOLOGISTS DON'T GET. In his latest Post column, as usual Harold Meyerson is spot on: Lieberman apologists are pushing one straw man after another about how Joe is being unfairly persecuted, when the truth is that he is a state and regional outlier. The most bothersome straw man is that Lieberman is held to some standard of partisan purity others are not. Look, nobody is saying that members of Congress (of either party, and from any state/region) have to vote with their party�s majority 100 percent of the time, or that they have to have 100 percent score as calculated with this or that ideological interest group. But Lieberman has far less right to ask for such lateral. In his case study of House races in the South during the 1980s and 1990s, political scientist James Glaser drew a conclusion about how southern Dems survive: �The outsider image that southern Democrats had was doubly effective as they disassociated themselves from both national parties. They played an us versus them game and �them� included both the Republicans and the national Democrats.� I�d happily extend Lieberman the same lateral that, say, Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas or Congressman Gene Taylor of Mississippi clearly need to exercise to survive politically�but only if Lieberman were from a state/district like theirs. The reasons the Taylors and the Pryors of the Democratic Party get special dispensation is simple: When white southern Democrats retire or run for office they are almost invariably replaced by Republicans. (In 2004, the GOP welcomed 25 new House members; 16 were from the South.) Lamont, on the other hand, can win the general election -- especially with Lieberman not running as an independent. As a Connecticut Yankee, Joe cannot assert the right to the same measure of latitude. If Lieberman loses the primary next month, he might consider relocating to Alabama to run in the Democratic primary in 2010 for the right to face Democrat-turned-Republican Richard Shelby. I�d write Joe a check, endorse his candidacy, blog my butt off for him�and give him all the ideological discretion he demands.
--Tom Schaller
