Lieberman won. No other way to put it. He pummeled Lamont. Even his body language had transformed -- I always assumed him a relatively gaunt, small-framed guy. Tonight he looked one shot of jack away from ripping off Lamont's head and eating his brains. Lamont, for his part, appears to have never had media training. Staring at the camera is the first thing you're taught, yet his eyes were darting about like a pup transfixed by a fly. He looked small, nervous, and unsenatorial.
Much of the post-debate analysis has focused on the chasm between the killer streak Lieberman displayed tonight and the slavish geniality in his mutual appreciation society debate with Cheney. Why the difference?
I've long believed that the ideological prism is inadequate for understanding Lieberman. His dysfunctions are less principled than pavlovian. If his instincts are centrist, his fans are Republican. Long a reflexive compromiser, the first to condemn Clinton on the Senate floor, he gave liberal Democrats no reason to enthuse over him but offered nervous Republicans much appreciated cover. And they were appropriately grateful. So though Lieberman is a Democrat and close with his Senate colleagues, he's long understood that the good vibes and friendly tones emanate, for him, from the right. So when he faced off against Cheney, he was speaking to a friend of sorts. Like in the past, a compromising stance towards the right would result in the gush of admiration he never got from the left. And so he did as humans tend to, blindly groping towards the easy praise and away from the tense confrontation.
