Ned Lamont, Thank You

by: ken_krayeske

Fri May 30, 2008 at 00:28:35 AM EDT

Thanks, Ned, for reminding how valuable Habeas Corpus is. You spent $15 million or so of your own money - a sum that boggles my mind. You could have bought yourself a 100-foot sailboat and run it with a full crew for four years or so. You could have bought a bunch of houses out of foreclosure and made a mint flipping them.

Instead, to speak for the Constitution, you put yourself through hell. And you survived. Anyone who doubted your sincerity should eat their hats. I heard you on Jon Dankosky's Where We Live Wednesday not once, but twice. I tuned in at 9 a.m., driving to New Haven. I even called in, and asked a question - 275-4266.

On my way home at 8 p.m., I tuned in again. I wanted to hear my question, and I wanted to listen to David Sirota again. I agree with him. You are a revolutionary. I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner.

You bought a platform, and you took a huge defeat. You invested $15 million and you lost, yet you stood back up, dusted yourself off and jumped back on your horse. You demonstrate self-confidence and maturity.  

But you seem coy in discussing your former opponent, if you talk about him at all. Your last post on your blog criticizing him is from Dec. 17, 2007. A ripe opportunity exists now to criticize Lieberman, and I beg you to seize it.

Please challenge Joe Lieberman on his relationship with the crazy Rev. John Hagee.

Calling Lieberman's office to complain about his coming speech at Hagee's summer conference is futile.  How do we let Lieberman know that he does not represent the good people of Connecticut in his crusade of prejudice and cowardice, running to the arms of a man who called the church that raised me a great whore?

I'm not the church-going sort currently. I'm more of the Ammon Hennessey, Utah Phillips school, where violence is an addiction like alcoholism, and peace is the answer.

How it galls me that I can't say Free Palestine and not be considered anti-Semitic, yet  Lieberman can cozy up to a lunatic who hates on Roman Catholics and praises Hitler.

Ned, you have earned the respect of your country. Your accomplishments make the man who vanquished you look puny. While Lieberman has shrank as a statesman, your stock has gone up. Show him one more time that his rhetoric of Holy Armageddon in Jerusalem has no place in a rational political debate.

If Chris Dodd is appointed to a cabinet position after Obama wins, and you manage to score that Senate seat in 2010, you'll be debating Lieberman again, only on the floor of the Senate. So get some practice now.

You've already won. You pushed the Democratic party leftward. You showed us all a lesson in courage, even if I didn't agree with all your platforms or actions, you currently manifest the meaning of bygones are bygones.

A caller to Where We Live, Andy from New Britain, she wanted to know why no one had criticized Barack Obama for backing Lieberman in 2006, and shunning you. Sirota said it was a valid critique, and he noted how Barack has one foot in K Street and one foot in the populist revolt.

The ultimate question, Sirota wondered, is which interest Barack will serve if he is elected president.

Admirably, Ned, you have put that stinging endorsement aside and rallied around Obama, the one man who can potentially lift America out of this morass, and that's considering Sirota's Barack caveat. We need unity right now, the whole progressive community has to get behind Obama, and you are a leader in that effort.

You are using your voice for the betterment of our world, crafting your platform to  encourage democratic conversations, chataquas as Robert Pirsig might call them. I wish I could have gone to your talk with Sirota at RJ Julia's bookstore.

While at the indy book shop, I would've looked to see if they had a Steven Zunes book, one where he describes the rise of Corazon Aquino. She helped lead the creation of a parallel civil society in the Phillipines that eventually overwhelmed the corrupt Marcos regime.

Zunes also has discussed the way the solidarity movement had a separate civil infrastructure that was able to supercede the corrupt, stagnant, and repressive Soviet-block Polish regime.

Here in Connecticut, perhaps it is not just a populist uprising we are witnessing, as Sirota claims in his new book, but the creation of a parallel civil society.  Sirota maintains that you ushered in a populist revolution, that there are 50 of you now, a viral replication of Lamont-Lieberman in every state, pushing the anti-war agenda into the Democratic Party Platform.

My wise-ass called Dankosky and asked you how we can truly create a populist revolution, one that doesn't cost the average guy $15 million and a year off from work that he can't afford. There is no answer to that rhetorical question, other than radical redistribution of wealth that I don't think our country is ready to consider.

So show us now how to get to that new place. Lieberman has gone off the deep end, and you maintain an air of sane public policy. I sure am glad that you entered the political stage when you did, and we need your voice again in Connecticut to stop Lieberman's shenanigans.

I've criticized rich politicians before, but none of them are like you. When Sirota talks, and tries to find historical parallels, looking in the late 70s or the 50s for a similar populist revolt, I don't believe that our past has the direct allegory to what is happening now.

The left rallying around Franklin Roosevelt? Maybe? Certainly not McGovern or Carter or Stevenson. Obama is the first black man to challenge for the presidency. We need to look outside the country for a precedent for something with such global impact, like the end of Apartheid in South Africa or the election of Indira Gandhi in India.

We have a freshman African-American Senator who campaigned against you, on some level cementing the re-election of a Benedict Arnold. Now this freshman senator is running for president, and you support him. And for that leadership you show, we should be grateful to you reminding us of our duty to the country.