Three cheers for Joe Lieberman, for describing his friend John Hagee as an eesh elokim like Moses --- the same John Hagee who believes that the Antichrist will be "a blasphemer and a homosexual" who is "at least partly Jewish, as was Adolf Hitler, as was Karl Marx."

Sheesh. What village do you have to start a pogrom in to be called an antisemite these days?

People say that John McCain and Joe Lieberman are joined at the hip, but that's not fair. John McCain is occasionally hit by pangs of decency; Lieberman never is. For example, when asked whether waterboarding is torture at a debate last fall, McCain answered, "I am astonished that…anyone could believe that [waterboarding] is not torture." Lieberman, on the other hand, observed that waterboarding "is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies." Good point, Joe!

Little Known Fact: Instead of sweat glands, Lieberman cools himself with a system of hydraulic sacs that inflate and deflate; hence the jowls So when it turned out last week that the Apocalypse Now theology of "Pastor" John Hagee includes the idea that Hitler was God's own personal gopher between Himself and His chosen people, McCain very quickly cut bait. Which meant that the countdown to Lieberman slobberingly embracing Hagee was on.

Sure enough, the news came on Wednesday that Lieberman will be the headline act at Hagee's annual conference for Christians who support Israel as a rope supports a hanged man. And yesterday, the AP reported Lieberman's rationalization: "while Hagee's comments were unacceptable and hurtful, [Lieberman] will judge him on his life work fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews." Which is, of course, complete horseshit. Lieberman has been a water-carrier for Hagee for years and the idea that Lieberman didn't know what Hagee and his followers think of Jews is risible. When Hagee was "only" in trouble for his anti-Catholic bigotry, Lieberman couldn't have been happier to rush to his defense.

Just how marginal is the fringe Lieberman has decided to occupy? It's not just reform rabbis like Eric Yoffie and David Saperstein who don't think Christian preachers and organizations actively lobbying for the annihilation of Israel are friends of the Jews. Abe Foxman, who had no objection to Hagee's bigotry as long as it was "not a Jewish issue," seems to have noticed that preaching that the Final Solution was divinely ordained is a Jewish issue. Think about that for a second: Foxman has the mental dexterity to deny the Armenian genocide, but not to deny John Hagee's antisemitism. Lieberman is making a bargain too corrupt for Abe Foxman.

Not, by the way, that Lieberman's total lack of scruples is a function of his transformation into an exhaust valve of the Straight Talk Express. Back in the long, long ago days of the year 2000, when Lieberman was busy doing for Jewish national candidates what Geraldine Ferraro did for women in 1984, he managed to suck up to Louis Farrakhan for votes. So maybe Lieberman will be remembered as a peacemaker in the end; who else could assemble a rainbow coalition of antisemitic religious charlatans with such aplomb?

(P.S. Lieberman's also a lousy senator. That huge clusterfuck in the Department of Homeland Security? Guess who's in charge of oversight.) 

Joe Lieberman has made it his business to guardLieberman Sez: "Free speech is something they made up on the Daily Kos" against the possibility that somebody, somewhere, might be enjoying adult freedom. It's no surprise, then, that when he heard about something called "YouTube"— where apparently anybody at all can post content—it was only a matter of time before the Jowls of Righteousness demanded the right to approve any video as kashrut before it appears online.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in Lieberman's senate office, while some unfortunate staffer informed Joementum of Google/YouTube's response.

Just try to imagine the scene: Lieberman smiling, gladhanding surrogates, schmoozing the day away on the phone, noshing on a bissel fressen, re-watching a few Dennis Miller DVDs (that guy never gets old!), drawing idea balls for his next Wall Street Journal column (ooh! Cromwell, Rabbi Akibah, Scoop Jackson; Babylonian Captivity, Hanoi Hilton, D-Day; appeasement, surrender, hijacked by left-wing extremists --- this one's going to be a doozy), almost working up the courage to plant a copy of Das Kapital in Barack Obama's desk, brainstorming Hebrew prophets to compare John Hagee to. When, with a hesitant turn of the office door handle, young Irving (probably Irving, possibly Noah or Ari) tiptoes towards the rich leather couch where Lieberman is napping like a tiny wrinkled seraph, and, not knowing what else to do, begins clearing his throat as conspicuously as possible.

Lieberman [talking in his sleep]: "Why thank you President McCain, I would be honored to accept the position of proconsul of Persia...[fidgets, gradually wakes up]...what, oh, just a dream. Nathan [or Elliot or Micah] my boy, what's the news?"

David [or Jonathan or Isaac]: "Senator, Google has written back. They s-s-s-say...[gulps]...should I read it?"

Lieberman: "Yes, by all means."

Jacob [or Matthew or Seth]: "It says, 'Dear Senator Lieberman, we appreciate your letter, your interest in our business, and our other affairs. Yes, our sister-in-law is doing quite well, and the nephew has just signed up for Birthright. Now, to the merits of your complaint, we must inform you that, contrary to your assertion in §1, you are not in fact the "Emperor of Muscular Foreign Policy" (we're not sure what that means, frankly), nor, if you were, would that entitle you to veto power over the content of YouTube. Moreover, your claim in §2 is false: We checked the archives extensively, and there is no Supreme Court precedent granting the "most morally clear" member of the US Senate authority to suspend whichever provisions of the Constitution he feels he must in order to protect children from moral corrosion; nor, as far as our research indicates, is there any record of anyone designating you "most morally clear" senator besides yourself. Lastly, the point you make in §3 is technically incorrect: The entire internet is not collectively responsible for everything that anyone posts anywhere on it. Thus, unless a more compelling case can be made, we have no plans to comply with your requests at this time. Regards, etc.....' That's it, Senator Lieberman."

Lieberman [jowls turning red more in sorrow than anger]: "I see. It is interesting, isn't it, that Hamas endorses the internet? I'm sure the American people will have some questions to ask about that."

The Republican party seems to think that the crucial swing voter in this election will be Apollo Braun. How else to explain their decision to abandon anything resembling a traditional political strategy --- including their recent instant classics of fearmongering --- in favor of a months-long extended violation of Godwin's Law at once hysterical in its desperation and overreach, and nearly impenetrably byzantine in its content. Apart from a certain minority of ignorant American Jews afraid of their own shadow, it's difficult to imagine any undecided voters who are on the right wavelength to pick up such rarefied dog-whistling.

George W. Bush has been in Israel this week to take part in 60th anniversaryGeorge Bush: "If my opponents are so smart, how come they're like Hitler? Riddle me that, Harvard." celebrations, and had a chance to address the Knesset earlier today. Rather than say anything remotely germane, he decided instead to denounce an unnamed American senator who reacted to the Nazi invasion of Poland by exclaiming, "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." The reference was to Sen. William Borah (R - ID), who left office in January 1940. Bush's press flack, Dana Perino, assured the press that any apparent comparison to another senator from a state starting with "I" is purely coincidental; but John McCain (and his pet soothsayer Joe Lieberman, natch) missed the memo about not unveiling veiled slanders. Hence he piled on:

If Senator Obama wants to sit down across the table from the leader of a country that calls Israel a stinking corpse, and comes to New York and says they're gonna, quote, "wipe Israel off the map," what is it that he wants to talk about? What is it that he wants to talk about with him?

Hmm. That is a real poser of a riddle, but let me take a crack at it. Obama would want to talk to Iranian leaders (not necessarily Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wields very little actual power) about negotiating Iran out of pursuing nuclear weapons, about nuclear non-proliferation generally, the stability of the Iraqi state, a resolution to the Kurdish national question, Lebanese sovereignty, shutting down anti-Iranian and anti-Shiite terrorist networks, opening up the Iranian economy to American goods and vice versa, trade and allocation of petroleum resources, relaxation of infringements of the rights of women and religious minorities, integrating Iran into western political institutions, setting up student exchange programs, and of course, Israeli security.

Part of the reason Obama would talk to Iran about all the foregoing is that George W. Bush --- unlike other American presidents since the fall of the Shah, who found uses for back-channels to Iran other than flipping them off --- has abdicated his responsibility. Bush's grounds for his foreign policy malfeasance is his belief that it's futile at best, Chamberlinian appeasement at worst, to talk to "terrorists and radicals" (note the elision of an important distinction) unless you can "persuade them they have been wrong all along." Which is a nice encapsulation of many of Bush and McCain's strategic blinders. It is possible to talk productively with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (or the actual leadership of Iran) --- for example, by negotiating a framework for Iraqi stability --- without convincing him that Israel is not, in fact, a stinking corpse. It's even possible to talk to Iran about curtailing their support of Hezbollah --- say, by offering something in return, perhaps something that could be revoked if the Iranians break the agreement --- without deciding one way or another whether Israel is a stinking corpse. Believe it or not, it's even possible to conduct diplomacy with Iran without giving away the Sudetenland.

Sure, it may sound nuts, or worse, like Chamberlain, to conceive of diplomacy as an exercise in anything other than demanding that other states bow to our will or else, but hey, since that approach hasn't worked out perfectly, maybe we should roll the dice.

Not if McCain has his way. Negotiations with Iran, he claims, entail "enhanc[ing] the prestige of a nation that's a sponsor of terrorists and is directly responsible for the deaths of brave young Americans"; so arguing for such negotiations demonstrates a lack of "the knowledge, the experience, the background to make the kind of judgments that are necessary to preserve this nation's security."

So at least we know what strategic concept is McCain's top priority --- prestige --- but it's a concept unlike anything recognizable in the history of political or diplomatic history. It has nothing to do with the GDP of Iran, nothing to do with its International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, or Freedom House ratings, nothing to do with the esteem in which anyone on earth holds Iran, nothing to do with its technological capabilities, and nothing to do with its military, political, and economic power. It can't have anything to do with any of them, since talking to Iranian leaders can't enhance any of them.

Still, we should probably trust in John McCain's knowledge, experience, background, and most importantly, his direct access to the Platonic form of prestige. After all, if pre-empting any enhancement of Iran's prestige weren't a matter of existential importance, then John McCain's monomaniacal pursuit of policies guaranteed to augment Iran's actual power and diplomatic clout, let alone his fatuous comparisons of anyone who stands in his way to Neville Chamberlain, would be alarming, inexcusable, and disgraceful, and probably render him unfit for the presidency.

The New York Times featured a profile of Senator Joe Lieberman on Monday, in which, predictably, a bunch of unnamed political hacks huff and puff and vent their rage at the Connecticut Senator and the Vice Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party eight years ago. Midway through is this little attempt at revisionist history:

Mr. Curry had lunch with Mr. Lieberman in December 2005 and warned about the antiwar sentiment sweeping Connecticut. “This is not an argument over the capital gains tax,” Mr. Curry recalled telling him. “This is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the history of the country.” Mr. Lieberman, who often praised the defense secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, shrugged off this advice. He saw the war as an epic struggle against Islamic terrorism; bombing Iran might not be a bad idea, either.

Actually, in October of 2003--a mere six months after the successful overthrow of Saddam Hussein--Lieberman called for Rumsfeld's resignation, long before it was fashionable. Here's what he said rather plainly on CBS News:

The uniform military feel deeply that he doesn't respect them, doesn't listen to them. The judgment about whether he stays or not is up to President Bush, but if I were president, I'd get a new Secretary of Defense.

Then there's the snarky, throw-away line stating that Lieberman came around to the belief, circa 2005, that "bombing Iran might not be a bad idea, either." Never mind the sneering tone: does Michael Powell have Lieberman on record (or even off) uttering anything along lines indicating support for "bombing Iran?" Lieberman has never called for the bombing of Iran. In fact, he delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference last week in which he called for tougher sanctions so as to prevent military action. The assertion that Joe Lieberman thinks attacking Iran is "not a bad idea" is an outright lie. And it raises a question: why is establishment media now so keen on attacking anyone with views on military intervention to the right of Barack Obama's?

Related: The whole premise of this article is a factual error.

There's a lot more wrong with Michael Powell's profile of Joe Lieberman in the in the New York Times today than Powell's misuse of the term "disinterested." (Really, the disinterested/uninterested distinction isn't that hard to grasp, though if it escapes the Times' proofreaders, upholding it is probably a lost cause.)

Powell has essentially two points to make. One is that, since his defeat in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary and subsequent re-election as an independent, Lieberman feels personally liberated to express his true, long-held views. There's no arguing with this: If Lieberman used to consider himself a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, he's outraged by Chappaquiddick --- well, that's his prerogative.Jowls of Insignificance

On the other hand, Powell's second point --- that Lieberman holds the balance of power in the Senate in the furrows of his formidable brows, and that many Democrats are therefore biting their tongues and not saying what they really think of Lieberman --- is based on a fundamental misunderstanding.

Presently, there are 49 Republican senators, 49 Democratic senators, and two independents, Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders and Lieberman. The independents caucus with the Democrats, giving the donkey party an effective 51/49 majority and the control of the Senate agenda and committees that comes with it. Powell's idea --- and to be fair he's not the first and won't be the last reporter to promote it --- is that if Lieberman flips and caucuses with the Republicans, the split will then be 50/50, and Dick Cheney, as President of the Senate, will break the tie, and Republicans will regain a senatorial majority.

Something like that scenario played out not too long ago. After the 2000 election, there were 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate, and Cheney was the tie-breaker. But in the spring of 2001, Vermont Republican Jim Jeffords, whose voting record was well to the left of many Senate Democrats, declared himself an independent, caucused with the Democrats, and made Tom Daschle the Majority Leader.

However, what made the Jeffords switch significant was a rule the Democrats passed on a strict party-line vote in January 2001, when the split was 50/50, but for a few weeks Al Gore held the tie-breaking vote. At the time, there were several Republican senators, including Jeffords, recent Barack Obama endorser Lincoln Chafee, and yes, John McCain, whom the Democrats thought they might be able to induce to switch parties. The rule the Democrats established with their temporary majority provided that, for the tenure of the 107th Congress, if the majority/minority senatorial caucuses were to switch, so would leadership of Senate committees and leadership of the Senate as a whole.

Once the 107th Congress expired in January 2003, so did the rule. Hence, if Lieberman were to re-caucus with the Republicans now, the relevant count for the remainder of the 110th Congress would still be the January 2007 count in which Lieberman caucused with the Democrats. Of course, the majority/minority composition of the Senate in the next congressional session depends on the results of this year's elections. And at the moment, the political futures markets favor the Democrats to win the presidential election 66-33.9 percent, and to retain control of the Senate 90-5.2 percent.

In other words, party-switching won't affect anything until at least 2009, and by then, it will likely be too late to matter. But why expect a New York Times political reporter to do five minutes of research before going to press with a feature premised on a glaring factual error?

So the bottom line is that Lieberman may be a bird uncaged and ready to take flight thanks to his experiences in 2006, but apart from Joe and possibly Haddasah Lieberman, nobody needs to care. It's doubtful that anyone can spend much time in Washington without being caught downstream of Lieberman's flapping jowls eventually, but no matter how furiously those jowls flap, they no longer exert any pull.

After Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky became front-pImmoralage news, Joe Lieberman took to the floor of our most hallowed deliberative boldy to announce:

Such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral. And it is harmful. For it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children...

[President Clinton] failed to show, I think, that he understood, that his behavior diminished the office he holds, and the country he serves, and that it is inconsistent with the mainstream American values that he has advanced.

Got it. A series of extra-marital blowjobs (a) is immoral (b) harms the family (c) harms the children (d) diminished the presidency (e) diminished America (f) weakened American values.

That's quite a lot for a series of blowjobs to accomplish, although the power of a series of blowjobs shouldn't be underestimated:

Anyway, where does Lieberman's moral certitude come from?

As a people we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God's purpose… George Washington warned us never to 'indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

Okay, so it comes from God. That's a pretty good source. So we know how the anointed one feels about blowjobs. How about waterboarding:

It is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger.Not Immoral

After all, what harm ever came out of institutionalizing water torture? Let's now give thanks that the good people of Connecticut rallied around Joe Lieberman in 2006, re-electing him to the Senate as an independent after he'd lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont. Otherwise, the conscience of Congress --- and dare I say it, the world? --- would have been left desolate, with nothing to live on but a sinecure at the Hoover Institution and a petulant, fact-uncontaminated column in the Wall Street Journal.

Last night, on the heels of Joe Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain, I made the case that when Joe Lieberman gives his inevitable address to the Republican National Convention, he'll be able to argue plausibly that he didn't leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left him.

Of course, Lieberman's embrace of McCain in the primary season (thereby rejecting not some but all Democratic candidates) ratchets up the likelihood of Lieberman not only speaking before the RNC, but intervening in the general election in a quasi-official way, say as a kind of Republican shadow cabinet officer. The extreme end of this thought, which no doubt we'll be hearing more of from Beltway journalists if from nowhere else, is Lieberman as the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee. That being the case, it's worth revisiting Bill Kristol's November editorial in favor of Lieberman as the GOP's veep pick. Let others dispute the wisdom of Kristol's argument; what caught my eye in re-reading the piece was the relevance of the following claim for the other big dynamic in the Republican primary contest:

McCain-Lieberman, Thompson-Lieberman, Romney-Lieberman, Huckabee-Lieberman --- those sound like winning tickets to us. [emphasis mine]

Kristol leaves Giuliani off the list since Giuliani presumably can't afford a pro-choice running mate (but why not though?; if the Republicans choose Giuliani despite his manifest unacceptability to social conservatives, will picking Lieberman really affect their disposition to vote for him in the general election --- it's not as if there's another pro-choicer whom any Republican would plausibly consider for the vice presidency). Notice who does make the list, though: Mike "Dogpatch" Huckabee, from whom sophisticated urbane conservatives are fleeing as fast as their legs can carry them, and whose boom is prompting calls for a bottom-up reappraisal of conservatism's proper attitude towards both the value of intellecual rigor and expertise, and the danger of overt political religiosity.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Bill Kristol speaks for the whole of the Weekly Standard, let alone the whole of the American right, but many of the conservative pundits, bloggers, and intellectuals currently losing it over the prospect of a Huckabee nomination hold views relevantly similar to Kristol's own (e.g. Charles Krauthammer, David Frum, and Stephen Hayes lampooning "Huckaplomacy" in the pages of the Weekly Standard itself). Refer back to Kristol's boosterism for the Lieberman-for-VP concept, and his specific locution: "Huckabee-Lieberman" sounds "like a winning ticket" not just to him, but "to us." So presumably Kristol is speaking for someone other than himself.

What happened? It was less than one month ago that the Kristol piece came out, and Huckabee-Lieberman was an idea that was not merely tolerable, but winning, to Kristol et al. Now that Huckabee is poised to make a credible run for the nomination, the very same folks who'd love Lieberman as the Republican VP choice are falling on top of each other to anathematize Huckabee (Peter Robinson, one-upping his colleague Lisa Schiffren, is now aping Redneck-speak).

Now, someone could object that I'm too focused on a throwaway line in one piece by Kristol about another subject entirely, but that's just the point: up until the moment when Huckabee's candidacy posed a threat to the GOP establishment, the GOP establishment was happy to throw a rhetorical bone to the snake-handling crowd now and then, comfortable in the knowledge that they'd never have to lend any other form of support.

The furious anger the NR, WS, etc. crowd is pumping out at Huckabee is breathtaking in its naivete: they really seem to have thought that they could win by dangling shiny objects in front of the yahoos (gay marriage bans, anti-abortion amendments) indefinitely. Gentlemen and ladies, putting massive military and police bureaucracies, nuclear weapons, and the welfare state under the control of theocratic ignoramuses turns out to be a really, really bad idea, doesn't it? Well, don't blame yourselves, it's not as if you could or should have foreseen the consequences of excusing, empowering, and mobilizing politicized Christian evangelism.

Recently, when speaking with gambling-minded friends of mine, I've queried them on what odds a smart bookie would lay for a bet that Joseph Lieberman will give a speech at the Republican convention next year. Until today, I wouldn't have taken such a bet at less than 5-to-1. Now, though, I wouldn't bet against Lieberman speaking at the RNC unless I were offered odds. (I checked Intrade; unfortunately they're not offering a contract on this.) Multiple sources are reporting that Vinegar Joe will endorse John McCain for president and begin campaigning with him in New Hampshire.

Marc Ambinder analyzes Lieberman's move this way:

The endorsement could help McCain with independents in the state. Combine that with news that Rudy Giuliani is scaling back his advertising buy there, that the Boston Globe endorsed McCain, and that McCain's rivals are spending most of their time in Iowa.

The endorsement is further evidence of Lieberman's slow drift to the right in American politics and is bound to generate intense anger among Democrats who support him. But Lieberman and McCain have often walked in lockstep together on the prosecution of the war, have traveled to Iraq together, and have worked together on domestic issues like climate change.

This is a good recapitulation of conventional wisdom, but it seems mistaken to me. For one thing, Lieberman hasn't really been drifting to the right. He originally won his Senate seat by running to Lowell Weicker's right. William F. Buckley, who in 1988 was still something of a force in Connecticut politics, supported Lieberman enthusiastically:

He is a Democrat who: Applauded the use of military force in Grenada. Applauded the anti-terrorist strike in Libya. Applauded the deployment of naval forces to keep open the sea channel in the Persian Gulf All these positions, Republican Senator Weicker opposed.

Lieberman favors a moment of silence in the public schools; and-as he put it, "in order"-he believes in God, in love of country, and in the work ethic. By contrast, Lowell Weicker prays every day only that there shall never be prayers said at school.

Lieberman believes that Fidel Castro is one of the most finished totalitarians of the century: "He is more of a Marxist-Leninist than Gorbachev."

Or to be just a bit less sanguine than Buckley, Lieberman has always understood foreign policy as a matter of taking sides in a dichotomous ideological struggle, as in his apparently serious suggestion that their respective allegiances to Marxism-Leninism are useful proxies for assessing Gorbachev and Castro, and indeed, that in 1988 "Marxism-Leninism" is an informative description of a force in geopolitics. On the domestic front, Lieberman's ongoing hostility to personal freedom and compulsion to make private morality a public political issue and his subliterate and uneducated understanding of the establishment clause and secular government generally, all stretch back a long way. As Buckley notes, even when it comes to abortion rights, Lieberman has long managed to keep one brow righteously furrowed. The only manner in which Lieberman has arguably drifted right is rhetorically --- his harangues against fellow Democrats might be somewhat more imperious, moralizing, and nasty than they used to be. Lieberman's substantive positions remain what they always were: expressions of aggressive paternalism at home and abroad.

Ambinder's larger point, to be sure, is that Lieberman can help McCain win in New Hampshire by shoring up his support among independents. Well, maybe. It's not clear what sort of grip Lieberman has on New Hampshire politics in light of his "three-way split decision for third place" there four years ago. By all indications, independents are a lot more interested in the Democratic primary, and not even Lieberman's ample charisma is likely to disturb that dynamic significantly.

From McCain's perspective, it might make some sense to roll the dice and see what happens, since he's finished if he can't win New Hampshire, but courting Lieberman seems to me an example of the same strategy that propelled him to defeat in 2000. As Mike Allen observes, "[the Lieberman endorsement] does not make sense for McCain because it will only remind core Republicans why they distrust him." If Lieberman's intervention on McCain's behalf has any effect on the race, the likeliest outcome will be a failure to draw independents away from the Democratic primary, coupled with an alienation of Republican voters who might otherwise have tolerated McCain as an electable alternative to Huckabee.

Moreover, even if McCain pulls off a New Hampshire victory with independent support, he'll need to be careful not to be resurrected as the maverick media darling he used to be --- or else Republicans nationally will come to resent him just as they did in 2000. If the narrative coming out of New Hampshire is "centrist McCain wins with support of centrist Lieberman," McCain is not going to be the Republican nominee.

Writing at the Politico, Ned Lamont (remember him?) takes aim at his former rival Sen. Joseph Liberman, who says the Democrats have forsaken the muscular internationalism of FDR/Truman/Kennedy for -- well, we're not quite sure what the new party ethos is these days ("Bashar al-Assad: Shave. That. Mustache."). 

Here's Lamont on what he thinks was a noble bipartisan past:

That is our bipartisan foreign policy tradition, which President George H.W. Bush understood when he asked his son to consult with Gen. Brent Scowcroft before invading Iraq. “Don’t Attack Saddam,” wrote Scowcroft, who was Bush No. 1’s top foreign policy adviser. “Any campaign against Iraq is certain to divert us from a war on terror.”

Brent Scowcroft, like Bush I and Bush II, is a Republican, but never mind that now.
The Cabal's Jamie Kirchick has fashioned a reply to the Daily Kos nutters' anointed, published in today's Politico:

Praising the first Bush administration and “our bipartisan foreign policy tradition,” Lamont neglects to mention that the vast majority of Democrats in Congress opposed the first Gulf War; Gore and Lieberman were two of just 10 Democratic senators to vote in favor of authorizing the use of American force.

What you can take away from Lamont's addlepated revisionism is his praise for Scowcroft's slogan, "Don't Attack Saddam." At least that got the parameters of the conflict right, and distinguishes the conservative realists from their convenient allies in the anti-war left, who preferred to say things like, "No Quarrel With Iraq."