LoungeMachine
08-11-2006, 01:00 AM
Ned Lamont, Tony Snow and Jellyfish
by Victoria Holt | August 9th, 2006
Much of the media’s attention is focused on the defeat in Connecticut of Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democrat primary on Tuesday, and the nomination of Ned Lamont as the Democrat’s candidate for Senate. Attention is also on Lieberman’s declaration that he will still run for Senate – as an Independent.
White House spokesman Tony Snow, at the “Western White House” today, addressed these events, of course, announcing that “the stakes are high.” But rather than call for support for the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut, Snow instead suggested that the nomination of Lamont was going to encourage terrorists, lead Iraq to become a failed state, damage American credibility, and offer up a “white flag” to the war on terror. He also managed to link Lamont’s upstart nomination to threats to the US from Iran, North Korea, and terrorists worldwide (again, and again).
Lamont seems to have shaken up more than Connecticut. If he is that powerful, perhaps he should be in the Senate.
Snow, no surprise, was trying to suggest that Democrats, by embracing Lamont, were representing the Democratic leadership’s approach to all foreign policy issues. Did he miss the fact that the national Democratic leadership generally embraced Lieberman? And that Lieberman defended the President? And that grassroots voices in Connecticut may not be expressing an easily, immediately discernable point of view?
Sometimes it takes a few days to sort out such messages, such as whether Lamont represents a re-alignment for Democrats or a more mainstream, bipartisan concern with the direction of war in Iraq. Or something else altogether. Things can seem to happen out of the blue, of course. I was recently in Connecticut’s neighboring state, Rhode Island. After a lifetime of swimming at the same beach right on the Connecticut border, I got stung – for the first time – by a Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish. Such jelly monsters have no business in New England! The sea creature left one leg bruised badly; my family had a happy burial for the animal after it washed up on the sand.
Like the occasional attack by an unexpected jellyfish, politics can express surprising results, especially to those who have not anticipated change. It will take a few more days and weeks to understand if Lamont represents new political focus for the critics of President Bush and his Iraq policy; it will take a few more months to understand what course we will see at the polls in November; and it will be a few more years before we know if a new President will take our nation in a different direction. From my point of view, we should be open to such change and messages. Lamont is not to be derided by Snow, rather, he should seek to understand that holding the course – no changes – may leave you ill-prepared for shifts at home or abroad, on land or at the beach.
by Victoria Holt | August 9th, 2006
Much of the media’s attention is focused on the defeat in Connecticut of Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democrat primary on Tuesday, and the nomination of Ned Lamont as the Democrat’s candidate for Senate. Attention is also on Lieberman’s declaration that he will still run for Senate – as an Independent.
White House spokesman Tony Snow, at the “Western White House” today, addressed these events, of course, announcing that “the stakes are high.” But rather than call for support for the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut, Snow instead suggested that the nomination of Lamont was going to encourage terrorists, lead Iraq to become a failed state, damage American credibility, and offer up a “white flag” to the war on terror. He also managed to link Lamont’s upstart nomination to threats to the US from Iran, North Korea, and terrorists worldwide (again, and again).
Lamont seems to have shaken up more than Connecticut. If he is that powerful, perhaps he should be in the Senate.
Snow, no surprise, was trying to suggest that Democrats, by embracing Lamont, were representing the Democratic leadership’s approach to all foreign policy issues. Did he miss the fact that the national Democratic leadership generally embraced Lieberman? And that Lieberman defended the President? And that grassroots voices in Connecticut may not be expressing an easily, immediately discernable point of view?
Sometimes it takes a few days to sort out such messages, such as whether Lamont represents a re-alignment for Democrats or a more mainstream, bipartisan concern with the direction of war in Iraq. Or something else altogether. Things can seem to happen out of the blue, of course. I was recently in Connecticut’s neighboring state, Rhode Island. After a lifetime of swimming at the same beach right on the Connecticut border, I got stung – for the first time – by a Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish. Such jelly monsters have no business in New England! The sea creature left one leg bruised badly; my family had a happy burial for the animal after it washed up on the sand.
Like the occasional attack by an unexpected jellyfish, politics can express surprising results, especially to those who have not anticipated change. It will take a few more days and weeks to understand if Lamont represents new political focus for the critics of President Bush and his Iraq policy; it will take a few more months to understand what course we will see at the polls in November; and it will be a few more years before we know if a new President will take our nation in a different direction. From my point of view, we should be open to such change and messages. Lamont is not to be derided by Snow, rather, he should seek to understand that holding the course – no changes – may leave you ill-prepared for shifts at home or abroad, on land or at the beach.