Lieberman Calls Congressional Democrats "Panderers"

Senator Joe Lieberman, self-billed as "the only independent Democrat," took the Democratic presidential candidates to task for "pander[ing] to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base." He seems particularly disgusted with the various conspiracy theorists who are running the show at the DNC these days.

A senior aide to Mr. Lieberman said the senator was attempting to draw out the long arc of the modern Democratic Party's approach to foreign affairs and persuade fellow Democrats that now was the time to embrace the Truman-Kennedy tradition again.

By Truman-Kennedy tradition, he means support for international pro-democracy efforts. What he's missing is that a solid core of the modern Democratic party didn't support the democratic traditions of Truman or Kennedy. They were communists.

They and their intellectual progeny have now been folded squarely into the Democratic camp. For them, democracy is nice when you have it, but is no panacea. In fact, it leads to the horrors of globalization and, inevitably, to consumerist capitalism.

In short, Senator Lieberman is pining for the Democratic Party of old. He was looking the other way when his party abandoned him. I think he's on the Zell Miller trajectory. He just doesn't know it yet.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 01:37 PM

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