LOSERS WALK. Joe Lieberman and John McCain will be holding their joint press conference at AEI shortly. As if it were not bad enough already that they -- rather than any single one of the 42 House, Senate or gubernatorial Democrats who won newly-captured seats from the Republicans in 2006 -- were the invited guests on Tim Russert�s first Meet The Press episode following the fall elections, now we have to listen to their plans for how to solve the Iraq problem? This is an Alice and Wonderland-like absurdity. Consider: Lieberman�s Iraq support led to his demise in his party�s primary last summer; a few months later, President Bush�s Iraq policy -- of which McCain is the single most prominent supporter outside of the administration -- cost the Republicans the general election. Put simply, other than Bush himself, Lieberman and McCain were 2006�s two biggest electoral losers on this issue, if not of the cycle as a whole, given the centrality of the Iraq war this past cycle. And yet somehow they are the ones to whom the public and the national media should turn for recommendations and advice? This would be akin to Mel Gibson declaring his intentions to be appointed by Bush to the newly-created position of National Sensitivity Training Czar. When I was a kid playing pickup football, the team that scored the most recent touchdown always exercised its right to turn to their opponents and say, "Losers walk." The other team, honorably albeit grudgingly, headed for the other end of the field to receive the ensuing kickoff. To the national commentariat and the country: When will the credibility loss for either Lieberman or McCain reach some tipping point? When will people recognize who lost not merely the war in Iraq itself, but the argument over the war? It's long past time for Team Joe-John to take the losers walk the rest of us are entitled to ask for, and watch.
--Tom Schaller
