The Crucible

by digby

The stakes in the Connecticut race seem to be getting higher among the chattering classes than among the grassroots. For the second time this week, I’m seeing one of the courtiers — in this case the Dean — saying that the race is the referendum on the Iraq war:

The outcome of their fight is important nationally for the meaning that will be attached. While other states such as Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio and Virginia will decide whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate, this Connecticut race constitutes perhaps the nation’s clearest test on the Iraq war.

Lieberman insists he is not wholly in the Bush camp but still argues that a victory in Iraq is possible and essential for American security — whatever that may mean. “I’m not ready to give up on the Muslim world,” he said, adding that a democratic Iraq could serve as a model for the Middle East. His winning and returning to the Senate and its Democratic caucus would slow, if not reverse, growing pressure from the Democrats for an early pullout of U.S. forces.

On the other hand, should Lamont repeat his primary win over Lieberman and capture the seat, it would add immeasurably to the momentum of the antiwar forces. He says that he is running in order to end the nightmare of “140,000 of our brave troops stuck in the middle of a bloody civil war.”

Wow. now that’s putting it in stark terms, isn’t it?

Here was court jester Chris Matthews on Tuesday talking about the Connecticut race:

I just don’t want to hear from those people later about how terrible the war is because the one thing about these elections is that in every national poll the number one issue is Iraq and the issue is going to turn on that election because we are already seeing develop a new policy refinement based upon these new political circumstances right now.

Washington has apparently decided that the Iraq war debate hangs on the Lamont-Lieberman race.

Perhaps this last week is a good time to tell all those Washington and Connecticut Democrats who care about this issue that this is how this race is shaping up. All eyes are upon them. The lives of thousands of people may depend on it.

Joe Lieberman is an unreconstructed hawk who, even in the presence of fellow willing bipartisan lap dancer Bob Kerrey, cannot admit that the war has made the threat of terrorism worse:

As Senator Joseph I. Lieberman stood beside Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator, to accept his endorsement on Wednesday, the two seemed to differ about whether the war in Iraq had made the United States safer.

Like Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Kerrey supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein early on and said that the region was safer without him in power. But he added: “Do I think invading Iraq helped the war on terror? No, I do not. I think it reduced the threat in the region, which was serious.”

His comments put Mr. Lieberman in an awkward position. Mr. Lieberman declined to say whether he believed that the war in Iraq had helped the war on terror.

Initially, Mr. Lieberman cited Mr. Kerrey’s comments about Saddam Hussein, saying that overthrowing him had helped make the Middle East safer, but he conceded that terrorists had “poured into Iraq now.”

Then, pressed by reporters, Mr. Lieberman answered, “It’s a more complicated question than that, and it doesn’t have a yes-or-no answer.”

If the cognoscenti believe that the Connecticut race is a crucible on Iraq, then we’d damn well better work our asses off to make sure that Lamont pulls this thing off. We may win the election but lose the Iraq war debate — at least in the short term — and that would be a terrible thing. The courtiers are looking for a way to discredit the anti-war sentiment in this country and this looks to be the vehicle they are going to use to prove that when the chips are down “America” really doesn’t care that much about the war in Iraq. (Look for them to find out that something like “gas prices” or “moral values” were the top issues in the campaign.)

This race is about more than Holy Joe Lieberman. The Kewl Kidz and the courtiers want to make it the national referendum on the Iraq war.

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