Op-Ed Column: Nagourney's Misreading of Lieberman's Loss

Adam Nagourney might want to begin teaching a class called “How to Write an Article in Under Ten Minutes.” Instead of making the necessary investment to reach his own conclusions - navigating through reality, facts and research - he simply pools together half-baked analysis and talking points (mainly provided by the right) and calls it news analysis. What little analysis Nagourney does seem to arrive at himself is either sorely misguided or stultifyingly obvious.

His New York Times article assessing Joe Lieberman's loss to newcomer Ned Lamont reads like a Nagourney primer.

First, there's his inevitable slagging of progressive bloggers, who no doubt had a hand in Lamont's victory (though their overwhelming portrait in the mainstream media as hate-filled counterparts to right-wing radio personalities seems a willfully misguided characterization).

Mr. Lamont’s victory marked the first time that liberal political blogs, after playing an increasingly noisy role in Democratic politics, have been associated with a major winning campaign, suggesting a moment of arrival for this new force in political combat.

It's no mistake Nagourney opts here for the pejorative "noisy" in describing the role liberal bloggers are now playing in Democratic politics, rather than, say, "influential" or "powerful." "Noisy" sounds unruly, angry, maybe dangerous. In essence, unacceptable. Webster's defines noise as "loud, unpleasant, unexpected, or undesired."

Nagourney then makes the argument that Democrats are now in an "excruciating position," "forced in the days ahead to choose between publicly renouncing a Democratic fixture, one popular among moderate and Jewish voters across the country, and embracing a Democrat who won a clear primary victory and has come to represent the winds of change."

Really? Excruciating position? Then how come prior to the vote almost every Democrat, including former President Clinton, said they would support the Democratic nominee. Period. Lamont won. Lieberman lost. Moreover, Lieberman's refusal to step aside and instead run as an Independent - his reasoning a froth of entitlement, arrogance and condescension - deserves to be shunned, even publicly excoriated, by other Democratics. Does Nagourney expect party members to reward Lieberman for such disloyalty and classless tactics?

Nagourney then delivers Republican talking points, unfettered by analysis:

At the same time, Republicans are ready to pounce on what they hoped could be a political opening presented by Mr. Lamont’s rising star, during what has been a difficult political season for them. They said this could become a crystallizing moment: an opportunity to frame the primary results in a way that has historically worked for them and that they have exploited ruthlessly, by presenting Republicans as better able to protect Americans in a dangerous world.

He continues to beat this conservative drum for three paragraphs, essentially allowing ad space for Karl Rove talking points, before saying, "But the results suggest problems for Republicans as well."  It then takes him three more paragraphs to boil down all of their problems to this: Lamont’s victory was a vote against the status quo, bloggers might have more power than was originally thought and the war in Iraq is, uh, not so popular.

Of course, what he fails to do is assess any of the empty Republican talking points he previously presented, all of which amount to a rhetoric of fear, mischaracterization and false claims to national security dominance.

Later, Nagourney brings out his sharpest knives to carve a false image of Lamont and his current position, employing shamelessly propagandistic language.

The road ahead for Mr. Lamont is hardly smooth. He now has to make the adjustment from being an insurgent— he gave his victory speech with the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson at his side — to being the official Democratic nominee, the symbol of the party establishment. He is relatively inexperienced, and is facing Mr. Lieberman, who still has extensive support from Republican and moderate voters.

His labeling of Lamont as an "insurgent" - a term synonymous in this country with those who are blowing up our soldiers every day in Iraq – is unconscionable. A cheap shot that sounds lifted from the Rove playbook. Use of such a ham-handed code word evokes the decades-old false assertion that Democrats are weak on defense, then furthers the character assassination by equating them with terrorists. Lamont beat a man who supported the war and so is labeled an "insurgent." A new and improved version of McCarthyite rhetoric to hurl at the Democrats come fall: hell, they're not just weak on terrorists, they are terrorists.

Throughout the article, Nagourney refuses to hold Lieberman accountable for his loss.

Mr. Lieberman stands apart from them and other Democratic war supporters because he came to be seen by Democrats, fairly or not, as a cheerleader for the president, and a scold to Democrats who opposed Mr. Bush’s war policy. That was a matter of great frustration to Mr. Lieberman, who complained, as polls showed him slipping to defeat, that he had been critical of the way the war has been fought.

Grounded in reality, how could it possibly be unfair to characterize Lieberman as a cheerleader for Bush and his war? From Bush's smooch on Lieberman's cheek (the now justifiably infamous "kiss"), to Lieberman's very public disparagement of Democrats who dared to criticize this president's war, to his laughably disingenuous eleventh-hour attempt to distance himself from our Bleeder-in-Chief, Senator Lieberman has made his own bed.

One thing those "noisy" bloggers have no patience for is all the empty talk about what a nice guy Joe Lieberman is. Would a nice guy resort to character assassination and right-wing rhetoric that attacks your opponent rather than his ideas (which, in Orwellian fashion, includes falsely accusing your opponent of perpetrating the same)? Would a nice guy - because he thought it was politically advantageous - let our soldiers continue to be slaughtered and maimed in an unwinnable war while making repeated statements that Iraq was turning a corner? Would a nice guy attack his opponent in his concession speech and refuse to graciously step aside now that the people have spoken?

Whether or not the dinner-party Lieberman or Meet the Press Lieberman or family man Lieberman is a nice guy is irrelevant. The majority of Democratics in Connecticut, as did the liberal bloggers, had it in for Joe for one simple reason: in showing sycophantic support to this dictatorial president, he failed to protect America's best interests.

Comments

[PlusDistance]

So many fish. So many barrels. So little ammo. And so much damage to the country.

Thanks, MB.