A few thoughts about Nedmentum...

...Good Nonsense as a whole hasn't posted a lot about Lamont/Lieberman I in recent weeks, and for good reason. Others have pretty much done a knockout job of covering the race. I commend them for it. I was refreshing all of their pages minute-by-minute last night.

Here are my at least 1% original thoughts on Nedmentum and Joenertia.

* Here is a predictably lame "Republicans think Lamont's win is fantastic!" column from Time.

One of the nip-and-tuck Senate races this year is in Missouri, and backers of Sen. Jim Talent are preparing an attack on his opponent, State Auditor Claire McCaskill, that is emblematic of the sort that will be seen all over the country within 24 hours. "Does Claire McCaskill support the wishes of the angry left by endorsing Ned Lamont's candidacy or will she support the man who was chosen by Al Gore as the Democrat's 2000 nominee for Vice President?" the National Republican Senatorial Committee asks in a statement that will force McCaskill to talk about messy party business instead of her favored issues of government accountability and affordable health care.

If Claire or any other major Democrat candidate can't counteract this line of crap with a simple "I support the 60+% of Americans who think George Bush has done a terrible job"-type of line and actually let the Republicans recover, then the Democrats really don't deserve to ever be a majority part again.

* I don't think there's any way that Lieberman listens to his friends and decides not to run. I really really hope I'm wrong.

* The "Our site's been hacked" saga from Lieberman's campaign yesterday was one of the lamest things I've ever seen.

* Every time the netroots have thrown all their weight behind a candidate, that candidate has lost. Every time after the loss, a high-ranking blogger says, "The mere fact that _____ was in the race speaks volumes about the power of the netroots," and every time they've said it, they've been right. However, the netroots really, really needed this. You only get so many moral victories before people stop believing. This was a fantastic cause, Lamont really has turned out to be a fantastic candidate, and the result feels, well, fantastic. But it's only Victory #1. It needs to be followed by Victories #2-100, and they need to start coming in bunches in roughly 2.5 months.

* The fact that Lamont won didn't make me feel nearly as good as the fact that all the party's head honchos immediately came out in support of Lamont and asked Joementum to step aside. I was actually nervous that people like Schumer meant what they said about supporting Lieberman even if he ran as an Independent. This actually makes me believe 1% in the future of the Democratic Party. Not 2% yet, but 1%'s a start. Joe's actually alone on this one, and I don't think he can win now.

Mannion has a >1% original line of thinking about Lieberman, and since I haven't linked to him in a while...

There was a moment during the 2000 Vice-Presidential debate.

Joe Lieberman, making the case that having a Democrat in the White House had been good for the economy, turned to Dick Cheney and with a big Cheshire chat grin said, "Admit it, Dick, aren't you better off now than you were eight years ago?"

A dumb, dumb question, because there was only one answer a good Republican would give to it, and Cheney gave it.

"Yeah," he growled, "But the government had nothing to do with it."

But that was a dumb answer for Cheney to give because the comeback was obvious and I jumped up from my chair and shouted at the TV as if Lieberman could hear me.

"The government had nothing to do with making you a multi-millionaire? Haliburton exists to scoop up fat government contracts! They hired you for all your government contacts! You're rich because the government was backing trucks full of money up to your front door and shoveling the money off at you with pitchforks!"

Did Lieberman hear me?

No.

Did he hear the voice that must have been shouting the answer inside his own head?

No.

He sat there and chuckled. As if to say, "Good one, Dick. You really nailed me with that."

And suddenly I couldn't deny it anymore. I'd been trying, for the sake of Al Gore, to pretend to myself that Lieberman wasn't what he was, a toady to Republicans, but that's what he was.

It was more important to him in that debate that Dick Cheney like him than that he take-down Dick Cheney.

I think that's about it. Blogroll on Friday, baby.