Bloggers targeted pro-Iraq-War Jewish Senator

A senior US Democrat senator and former vice-presidential running mate to Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Joseph Lieberman, has been defeated in primary elections in nomination in the US state of Connecticut.

His defeat is largely being seen in America as thumbs-down for President Bush’s war in Iraq, though the GOP (Republican party) put on its best spin, claiming that it was a sign the Democrats have turned towards the extreme left and were therefore unfit to 'protect' America. Lieberman lost to Ned Lamont, a political novice with no experience who ran on a platform of strong opposition to the war in Iraq.

Wait a minute, isn’t Lieberman a Democrat?

He certainly is, and like Hillary Clinton and a few other Democrat senators, has been supporting the war in Iraq. Though the result has been from the Democratic primary elections for the Senate, it is regarded as an indicator of American voters' opinion ahead of midterm elections in November. That’s the one Bush’s Republican party has been worried about, where it could possibly lose control of Congress back to the Democrats.

Hillary Clinton has been ‘supporting’ the war in Iraq because she has been afraid her presidential aspiration may be threatened if she is seen to be less than ‘patriotic’, as John Kelly had been unfortunately and unjustly tarred by the Republican campaign in 2004.

That vicious campaign by Bush's campaign genius (some called him an 'evil' genius), Karl Rove, had painted John Kelly Kerry, an American war hero with bravery medals and combat wounds (& the Purple Heart medal), as unreliable in a war situation, while George Bush and Dick Cheney who both avoided the draft (Cheney took 5 deferments) to Vietnam like the chickenhawks they have been, were promoted as the more resolute team to lead America in a war.

The American voters bought that spin, but unfortunately for those who are parents, more than 2600 young Americans died getting shot in Iraq with trillions of American taxpayers' dollars wasted, while Cheney shot his millionaire friend while on a leisurely quail shooting party in mainland USA.

Liberman’s adverse showing will certainly give Hillary Clinton second thoughts about her political stand on the war. She has once voiced her sympathies for Palestinians, once, but had to backpedal when the powerful American Jewish lobby raise objections.

Lamont had run the campaign by describing the race as a referendum on the war and called Lieberman an enabler of Bush and a ‘lapdog’, while Lieberman had argued that a quick pullout of US troops from Iraq would be a disaster for Iraqis as well as the USA, though he did admit the Bush administration had made mistakes in its conduct of the war in Iraq.

Strangely for a Democrat (or maybe not afterall), Lieberman has been one of the ardent supporters of Bush's war in Iraq. In fact he was such an ardent supporter that after the 2005 State of the Union address Bush gave him a hug, which liberal Americans today termed as the 'Judas Kiss' or 'The Kiss of Death' for Lieberman.

When Lamont voiced his vociferous opposition to Bush's reckless Iraq war, he attracted the attention of activists, bloggers and groups like MoveOn.org. These people contributed an army of volunteers who went house-to-house in Connecticut for months and, as an example, made 80,000 phone calls in the days before the primary vote.

One blogger David Sirota said: "Lieberman was handed a crushing defeat because ordinary people realize that Joe Lieberman and the Washington establishment he represents has for too long been allowed to sell out their constituents and this country as a whole."

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman has supported the war a wee too enthusiastically. I wonder whether he being a Jew has had anything to do with supporting a war that has benefited only one nation, Israel.

Liberman said he would run as an independent candidate after the overwhelming Lamont victory. But the bloggers and activists are not through with the senator or others who backed the war.

Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Avtion said his group would give about $15 million to candidates and organizations interested in 'changing the course' of the country.

He vowed: "... our focus will be to make sure Lieberman does the right thing and steps aside now the voters have weighed in."

MoveOn members soon will start making telephone calls urging him to bow out gracefully.

'Or else', I presume!