Lieberman's Loss

Ignoring the babble, dribble, drool and spew from the Nutrooters, what does it really mean?

Noteworthy:


"All of this is of course speculation — albeit somewhat informed. But if GOP House members were privately breaking out the Korbel last night, it’s for a good reason."

"At the end of the day what was done to him was a statement about the Democrats, not Joe. And it is a sad one. A once great party threw out its last best hope of foreign-policy sanity."

"The Democratic party is what it is — a foolish, demagogic, head-in-the-sand, appeasing party. Nothing that happens in Connecticut will affect that very much."

"Although the faultlines of a future schism in the party may well have been revealed, the aftershocks of the present temblor (forgive me, I live in California) will be minor."

"Spin it as he may, the central plank in Lamont’s platform is for the U.S. to accept complete and utter defeat at the hands of terrorists and insurgents in Iraq — and, by implication, before long, elsewhere too."


"However, as the intellectual activists and radicals of the Democratic party left him, working class, small-town, and moderate Democrats rallied and voted with Senator Lieberman."

"While I respect (but do not agree with) the opinion of the Democratic primary voters in Connecticut, it appears to me that the Democratic party is in the process of cementing that it is the "peace" party that is soft on defense and foreign affairs."


"However, if Lieberman remains competitive in a general election match-up, the dialogue may focus more on divisions among Democrats and attempts to define the Democrats’ position in Iraq."



The effects of the Law of Unintended Consequences has many ways to work here.