DNC responds to the HitlerDean story

The DNC responds to the HitlerDean story.

A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee has now slammed the Republican National Committee for posting on its web site a photo of Howard Dean that appeared to have been Photoshopped to make it look as if Dean were sporting a Hitler moustache.

"If it's true," DNC spokesperson Karen Finney tells us, "it's really disgraceful."

Supporting Lamont

Supporting Ned Lamont means more than cutting checks for him or making public endorsements. It also means defending him against scurrilous attacks that, by their very nature, smear you just as bad as they do him. When the attacks come from a fellow Democrat it is even more important to respond because, left unrefuted, those attacks support the Republican narrative for the coming election.

Lieberman's campaign is a campaign against the entire Democratic party. He is and will continue to use the party as his whipping boy in order to achieve his selfish goals. Will Democratic leaders who have nominally endorsed Lamont give him real support by fighting back against Lieberman?

Colin McEnroe has doubts.

On a lesser and more devilish note, what do you suppose all the "unity" Democrats, starting with Chris Dodd, ought to do or say about Lieberman's remarks from yesterday (see below)? The senator is obviously wrong and out of line. His statement suggests he intends to run as a Cheneyist against his Democratic opponent. He has handed the Democrats an unsought and probably unwelcome opportunity to show us what they mean when they say they will support Lamont. Ordinarily, it would entail calling Lieberman's bluff. Will they? I say no.

The longer Democrats leave Lieberman to push his "vote for me because my party is bad for America" line without fighting back, the harder it will be for them to push their narrative. Obviously they don't want to hit their "good friend", but real friends are those who are willing to tell you when you are being an idiot.

CLEAR!

The Republicans are feeling the heat from Democrats for sending out a fundraising appeal based on the War on Terror on the same day as the revelation of the Liquid Bomb Plot. As Markos points out, the Dems are no longer cringing when the Republicans yell "Soft on Terror!".

Democrats assailed the Republicans Friday for e-mailing a fundraising appeal mentioning the war on terror hours after British authorities disclosed they had disrupted a plot to blow up aircraft headed to the United States.

...

"The defeat of the London plot is a warning that we should redouble our efforts to defeat terrorism. It shouldn't be used as a political defibrillator by Republicans on electoral life support," said Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats' campaign committee.

A+ to Mr. Singer for such great imagery.

Earlier Version of HitlerDems Found

The good people at Fark.com have discovered an even earlier version of the GOP.com HitlerDems image:

I guess there is still something salvagable in the GOP soul that kept them from going with this one.

National Dems Very Happy With Lamont (CORRECTION)

UPDATE

Slap me for not reading closely enough. This was a poll of National Dems, not Connecticut Dems. Argh!

Still, this is very good news. The GOP's tactic of scaring Dems by telling them that everything they do will hurt them appears to be losing its effectiveness.

Gleen Greenwald has some good comments on this poll here.

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New polly goodness:

It found that nearly four out of five Democrats (79%) were happy the former Democratic vice presidential nominee was knocked off by Lamont, a wealthy cable television executive whose campaign focused almost exclusively on his opposition to the war – and Lieberman’s support of it. Just 12% said they were not pleased with the results of the primary, which riveted political junkies across the nation. Another 10% of Democrats said they were not sure what to think.

Lamont won the primary 52-48. 79% of Democrats like the result. Which means that 25 of Lieberman's 48% share, more than half, are happy with their vote going to the loser.

Sounds strange? Not really if you consider that a large portion of Lieberman's support may have simply been a vote for "the devil you know". You also have to factor in this years overwhelming desire by Democrats to be united. Even if your personal choice for who the candidate should be lost you still want your party's candidate to win.

What it really shows is that Lieberman's support in Connecticut was even weaker then Tuesday's results demonstrated and it bodes well for Lamont in the general.

Lieberman's Independent Bid In Trouble Already?

Could this be the final irony?

This Courant report comes via LamontBlog:

Shirley Surgeon, Hartford's Democratic registrar of voters, said she is verifying 59 pages of signatures delivered to that city's town clerk last week.

Although each petition contains room for 30 signatures, Surgeon said the majority of those she received contain about half that, and several have been disqualified.

"Out of 15 on this first page, nine were good," Surgeon said.

In Norwalk, Town Clerk Andrew Garfunkel said he received one petition page Wednesday.

Norwalk Democratic Registrar Betty Bondi said if the rest of Lieberman's petitions are as "sloppy" as that one piece of paper, his chances to make it onto the ballot do not look good.

Ever since Lieberman announced his intentions to gather petition signatures for an independent run a thought has been nagging at the back of my mind: What if he fails to qualify? I never really thought the possibility was serious. But considering how incompetent the rest of his campaign has been why should we be surprised if "Lieberman for Connecticut" dies aborning?

Fighting Nonsense

I agree with Kevin Drum that this kind of nonsense needs to be fought back every single time.

This nonsense needs to be fought at every turn. Democrats have to make it absolutely clear, every single time somebody spouts this rubbish, that supporting the Iraq war doesn't mean you're "on offense against terrorism." Nor does opposing the war also mean you oppose fighting jihadism. The truth is closer to the exact opposite, and chapter and verse should follow if necessary.

This needs to happen Every. Single. Time. We can't allow the Rudy Giulianis and Dick Cheneys of the world to get away with this. They've dug us into too deep a hole already, and we can't afford to let them dig it any deeper.

But one of our biggest problems when it comes to messaging is that Democratic leaders are not disciplined enough to consistently hit on a point until it starts to stick. So, even if a few Democrats here and there hit back with the "Iraq != War On Terror", they don't do it enough to make an impression.

Worse, several Democrats contradict this message and they generally tend to get a lot more media attention.

One thing I always appreciated about Howard Dean (and still do) was his consistency. He would repeat a point over and over and over and over again. So much so that I used to joke with fellow supporters that we could recite his stump speech chapter and verse by the end of the campaign. People who follow politics closely may find this tedious because they have heard it before. But it is this kind of repetition that eventually begins to change the dialog.

Say what you will about Republicans, at least they understand the importance of consistent messaging.

Mentos are lethal!

Great minds think alike. I thought of this yesterday but dood abides beat me to it.

Law Enforcement Works!

One lesson to learn from the foiled airplane bombing plot, courtesy John Tirman:

First, what stopped this plot was law enforcement. Law enforcement. Not a military invasion of Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, or Iraq. Old-fashioned surveillance, development of human sources, putting pieces together, and cooperation with foreign police and intelligence services.

Time was, Republicans used to tout themselves as being tough on crime. Now they laugh at the concept of trusting cops to keep us safe.

I guess their philosophy now is, "Why bother policing a neighborhood when you can just blow it up?"

Lamont Shutout Confirmed

So, I wasn't just imagining the Lamont shutout. Media Matter's reports:

Network morning shows provided forum for Lieberman's attacks, no forum for Lamont

Summary: During their August 9 coverage of the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary, the three major broadcast networks' morning news programs interviewed Sen. Joseph Lieberman but failed to host the winner, Ned Lamont, or any of his representatives. Additionally, NBC's Today and CBS' The Early Show aired twice as much footage of Lieberman's statements following the election as they ran of Lamont's statements.

It's really pretty amazing. Lamont achieves the defeat of a powerful and well-known Senator like Lieberman, and not a single network news program thinks to even bring the guy on to do an interview?

GOP paints Hitler moustache on Dean (Updated, Updated Again)

Classy.

Dependable Renegade has the photo proof.

UPDATE

Apparently the front-page image on GOP.com has changed, but pegstander, a commenter at dKos, has found that the original image is still on their host. I've downloaded them and uploaded them on my web page.

The following is the new image, stored on GOP.com at http://www.gop.com/images/choice5.jpg:

And here's the old image (which I've copied just in case it eventually gets removed), which was originally at http://www.gop.com/images/choice4.jpg:

Click on the following to contrast the two pictures:

UPDATE 2

It's a good thing I copied the original HitlerDean image because the choice4.jpg image (the one that contained the cute little airbrushed Dean) on GOP.com now matches the cleaned up choice5.jpg. Looks like someone over there is still trying to cover their tracks.

(Hello to all the visitors from Atrios. I feel like I'm drinking from a firehose. :-)

Guess Who?

"Now, politics demands compromise...and even the most partisan among us have to understand that. But we must never forget that compromise and bipartisanship are means, not ends, and are properly employed only in the service of higher principles.

"It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle. For the true statesmen ... are not defined by what they compromise, but by what they don't."

--Tom DeLay, in his farewell speech to the House Republicans, June 2006

For once I agree with the little troll.

(Of course, DeLay was one of those politicians who was great at doing the very thing which he decried most in others.)

Lamont Who?

dKos Diarist WinSmith has an interesting observation: a lot of the post-primary MSM coverage of the Connecticut race talks up Lieberman while barely mentioning Lamont.

Is the media trying to starve out Lamont? Just pretend he doesn't exist?

I've read reports of several appearances by Lieberman on MSM channels this morning. But not a single report of a Lamont interview. Has he had any?

What Might Have Been

Matt Stoller channels himself from a parallel universe.

The Issue is Bush

At least that's the preliminary conclusion I derive from this exit poll analysis by Glenn Greenwald:

2) Apparently, a more significant factor than the Iraq war was opposition to President Bush generally. Fifty-nine percent of all voters said that Lieberman "was too close to the President," and although no exact numbers are provided, it was that group which "voted overwhelmingly for Lamont." The most reliable factor in the Lamont win seems to have been not opposition to the war specifically, but a more generalized disapproval of President Bush and of Lieberman's support for the president.

Greenwald points out that, according to this exit poll, 40% of anti-Iraq-War Connecticut Dems still voted for Lieberman. So opposition to the Iraq War is not the defining issue of this campaign. It is opposition to Bush in general that is the key to this election.

The American people are tired of Bush but Bush cannot be removed (barring an unlikely impeachment). So what the people want are representatives who will at least work to check Bush's outrageous actions.

It's not simply a matter of running against Bush. It's running for the principle of oversight that will bring in the votes.

60% of Americans are out of the mainstream

Poll: 60 percent of Americans oppose Iraq war

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.

Andersen Democrats

Jane Hamsher asks whether we are Lamont Democrats or Lieberman Democrats.

My answer is, neither.

I am an Andersen Democrat.

The question is whether the candidates I support are for me, not whether I am for them.

Andersen Democrats

Jane Hamsher asks whether we are Lamont Democrats or Lieberman Democrats.

My answer is, neither.

I am an Andersen Democrat.

The question is whether the candidates I support are for me, not whether I am for them.

Lieberman endorsements

A lot of people are wondering today whether prominent Democrats will endorse Lamont now that he has the nominee. Many are already falling in line.

But I have an equally interesting question.

Who will Joe Lieberman endorse in other races around the country? And will those candidates want that endorsement?

The Message

Lieberman says that he is running as an independent because he believes he can better represent the people of Connecticut in general then can the chosen nominee of the Democratic Party.

The message is this, "I don't believe the Democratic Party represents the will of the American people".

And he wonders why people think he undermines the party?