Post Lieberman-Lamont Spin Cycle

Didn't take long for Republican spin (propaganda) machine to get into gear to explain to the mainstream media what the Lieberman primary loss means. The Dems are soft on defense, isolationist, McGovern-like.

Ken "Larry Bud" Mehlman and Senate Majority Leader wannabe Mitch McConnell yapped up as soon as it was clear Lonely Joe lost and will now run in a new party with exactly one candidate-him (yep, they formed a new party called "Connecticut for Joe Lieberman" so that he won't be running as an individual against his former party.) The press, of course, dutifully reported it. Op ed columnist have taken up the talking points too. I read a particularly funny one in the Daily News. "Win for the Whackado Wing." Ha ha. Funny, but nonsensically off base.

How does opposing a war of adventure in Iraq make anyone soft on defense? We weren't acting defensively, as the evidence has shown. This was a nutty neo-con adventure in introducing democracy in the middle east at the point of a gun (or several hundred thousand). McConnell said the Dems have forgotten the lessons of 9/11. Huh? This wasn't about striking back at terrorists. There weren't any in Iraq before the war. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Only evolution/global warming deniers can deny this too. (Why lets facts get in the way of beliefs?)

This was the opposition party punishing an incumbent for not opposing this neo-con nonsense. Why do Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh et al love Lieberman? Because he's moderate? No. Joe Biden is a moderate and they hate him. It's because Joe is onboard with neo-con extremism and double speak. Things are better in Iraq, really and they are getting better. Saddam isn't ethnically cleansing neighborhoods any more. The Iraqis are doing it themselves. Democracy in action. Bahgdad's morgue is a veritable Thor's Goblet of corpses right now. The finish burying yesterday's 300 dead and when they turn around, the morgue is full with the 300 newly murdered from today. And these aren't victims of the insurgency. They are the handiwork of Sunni and Shia death squads--some of whom operate with in the security forces that we are handing control of the country to.

Joe got this terribly, terribly wrong. The people see this. (CNN's new poll shows 61% against the war and over 50% saying we should start getting out.) They voted that way. That's all this election means. Democracy in action. Nothing more.

For those of you who argue that pulling out now is defeatist or will necessarily lead to chaos in Iraq, I say this: We removed Hussein. Mission Accomplished. We never intended to colonize Iraq, so how is leaving admission of defeat? Chaos has already gripped Iraq and we can't stop it. We are irrelevant there. Iraq will stabilize and moderate or devolve into 3 ethnic states whether we are there or not. If we couldn't prevent it up to now, how will staying any longer change that? Hmmm. What we are doing isn't working, so doing it for ten more years will fix it. Curious logic at best. Insanity at worst.