Funniest Show In Politics

David Sirota is again...right on target:

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Pull Up A Chair-- This Is the Funniest Show In Politics
by David Sirota


Pull up a lazy boy chair, grab some popcorn, kick back and enjoy watching the Washington Establishment positively freak out. With news that Ned Lamont is pulling ahead of D.C. cocktail-party favorite Joe Lieberman, the elitists are out in full force. First, there is Mort Kondracke - the wax-figure-looking pundit whose entire Madame-Tussaud, formaldyhyde-in-the-veins look personifies Washington's stale, out-of-touch culture. In reading his latest Roll Call diatribe spewing bile at Lamont, you can feel his hot panting breath like a man frightened for his own life. It's a hilarious Peter-Beinart-esque rant essentially demanding those courageous D.C. status quo elites purge the Democratic Party of, well, the Democratic Party. Same thing with former Christian Coalition official and GOP operative Marshall Wittman, who purports to speak for Democrats. As if he's having a bad acid trip, his latest wild-eyed screed against progressives reminds us of why someone originally invented straight jackets.

I agree with Markos in believing that Josh Marshall sums it up best:

"I think the Lieberman skeptics are really on to something when they point out that in the Kondrackes and others there is this sense that for a well-liked-in-the-beltway senior pol like Lieberman to face a primary challenge is somehow a genuine threat to the foundations of the system. You'd think he was a life peer, if not an hereditary noble, suddenly yanked out of the House of Lords and forced to run for his seat like they do in the Commons."

Josh is absolutely right - this has everything to do with Washington insiders of all sorts fearing for their own jobs, and their own relevance. Think about it. Why does Mort Kondracke need to be employed as a pundit anymore if a whole new medium exists whereby ordinary people can have a voice, and whereby ordinary people can expose his inaccuracies or his utterly vapid nature? Better yet, why is Mort Kondracke even relevant anymore if he and his pundit pals don't have a monopoly on political opinions?

MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0721-21.htm

such shit instead of issues is already irrelevant.

beyond last Tuesday, they do an incredibly good job of hiding it.

Essentially the script is what just happened and what can we say that has already been said but someone might not believe is the gospel truth yet.

And, what's up with his style? Doesn't that guy know he's on TV? And that it's no longer 1983?

A bit I found especially offensive even for the Bull Moose.

The inside the beltway crowd don't want us to look to closely at the details beyond whether we are voting for the team with the D on their jerseys or the one with the R.

They are afraid this will start a trend of real democracy.

Those who got into politics primarily to enrich themselves or their patrons are worried their shtick won't work anymore. The GOP game of hot buttons like racism, fear, and war are already losing the middle. The Democrats comparable but less successful strategy of bland, Mr. Rogers-like platitudes isn't losing steam as fast, but then it was never that successful so it doesn't have far to go.

It would be nice if we got to the point where parties represented a recognizable set of ideas. The GOP has done this to some degree even though their ideas are destructive and the ones they are most identified with are bait for the rubes.

What can you be sure most Democrats will fight for? Mostly abortion, and half-heartedly black civil rights, gay rights, and labor (the last only being on the domestic front while they will sign trade treaties that cut the legs off labor internationally).

When Lieberman and past pols have said that partisanship ends at our country's shore, they are actually drawing attention to a flaw in our democracy not a strength. Essentially, we have one party that screws people at home and abroad and one that prefers to only screw people abroad (though some can be persuaded to screw us at home if the price is right).

Lieberman is the poster child for clean money and opening up our system to more parties while reducing the "spoiler" effect with things like instant run off voting.