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HOW ABOUT THAT

The Age’s Michael Gawenda meets millionaire Democrat peacenik Ned Lamont:

This is Lamont country, where the wealthy, liberal, fiercely anti-war Connecticut Democrats can be found, and so it is right and proper that Ned Lamont’s news conference is being held here, by the shores of the sound, in the middle of a lovely national park.

Unfortunately, apart from The Age, only two other journalists turn up. But Mr Lamont is undeterred as he speaks about his passion for the environment.

“So you’re an Australian journalist,” he says. “And you guys are still part of the coalition of the willing? You have your soldiers still in Iraq? Well, how about that.”

Nothing new here; anti-war folks tend not to know much of the war they oppose. At a John Kerry fundraiser in Washington two years ago, Tim Dunlop observed that “not one person knew of Australia’s involvement.”

Posted by Tim B. on 10/14/2006 at 02:26 PM
  1. Ned Lamont, A People’s Person, and a Peer to All (as long as they, too, are uninformed multimillionaires).

    Posted by ushie on 2006 10 14 at 02:35 PM • permalink

  2. #1 Haw! That’s about the size of it, all right. Lamont’s that famous capitalist hawking the last rope to the reds.

    Posted by paco on 2006 10 14 at 02:45 PM • permalink

  3. They get their information about the war from Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911 which studiously avoided mentioning either Australia or Britain.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 14 at 02:53 PM • permalink

  4. “Do you people speak English there in Australia?  Are you still located next to Italy?”

    Gah.  If Connecticut elects this embarrassment to office, they deserve to be kicked out of the Union.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 10 14 at 03:17 PM • permalink

  5. “Dumb and Dumber” writ small:

    The Jim Carrey character asks stunning girl where she got her accent.

    Girl: “Austria”

    Carrey (in his best Hogan): “Well G’day, lets put another shrimp on the barbie!”

    Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 10 14 at 03:32 PM • permalink

  6. “AT 63, JOE Lieberman is fighting for his political life.”

    Then

    “Mr Lamont is struggling according to the polls — the latest has him trailing Senator Lieberman 53-40, with Alan Schlesinger, the hapless Republican on 8 per cent.

    But most observers believe the race will tighten in the next two or three weeks,”

    “Most observers???” Name one. Lieberman was kicked out of the Democratic Party by the Kos Kids, who rated him as a troll. Problem is that that failed somehow to make their troll rating system binding on the electorate of Connecticut.

    What do you call a man who has been ‘beaten’ by Kos? Oh yeah “Senator”

    Posted by moptop on 2006 10 14 at 04:22 PM • permalink

  7. Wow.  You don’t mean to tell me that the one victory Kos and Ko. can claim might turn out to be…what’s it called now…a Pyrrhic victory!  Who could have guessed?

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 10 14 at 04:46 PM • permalink

  8. This is Lamont country, where the wealthy, liberal, fiercely anti-war Connecticut Democrats can be found, and so it is right and proper that Ned Lamont’s news conference is being held here, by the shores of the sound, in the middle of a lovely national park.

    Connecticut has a national park?

    Posted by Ted Schuerzinger on 2006 10 14 at 04:49 PM • permalink

  9. Connecticut has a national park?

    Yes Ted, and after the “rich liberal, fiercely anti-war” types take over, the whole country will be a national park, except for their estates of course.

    Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 10 14 at 04:55 PM • permalink

  10. Three, at least:

    Weir Farm National Historic Site

    Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers

    and part of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

    What can you expect? It’s not a very big state.

    Posted by steveH on 2006 10 14 at 04:58 PM • permalink

  11. Joe Lieberman strolls amongst the small business owners and workers, and has their support.  He also has union endorsements. 

    Lamont holds a poorly attended press conference “...the middle of a lovely national park”, and has the endorsement of the Kos Sacks and DNC.

    Joe Lieberman has a 53-40 lead in opinion polls over Lamont without DNC support.  The DNC has to bring in Bill Clinton and Wesley Clarke* in an attempt to bridge that gap.

    Yet Joe Lieberman is “struggling for his political life”.  Methinks Michael needs a serious injection of reality.

    ======

    *: Bringing in Wesley Clarke sounds like a last ditch effort.  The only people who take Clarke seriously are already barking moonbats.  Bubba, now, is a bit different.  But Clarke?  Jeez!

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 10 14 at 05:46 PM • permalink

  12. Nothing new here; anti-war folks tend not to know much of the war they oppose.

    And you can’t tell them, either.  Add to the lefty Compassionate Head Tilt the Shrugging Head Shake.  You mostly get this from high school kids trying to repeat the political science lectures they get from their English teachers.  Rebut their slogans with actual facts and their rejoinder is usually:

    *Shrugging Head Shake* “Yeah, well, it just sucks, y’know?”

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 10 14 at 05:51 PM • permalink

  13. those would be the same arrogant american liberals who decry their conservative opponents as “stupid, unread, easily-led morons with no real idea of the world”.

    would like to call the irony “stunning”, but we’re talking about american liberals here. the ironymeter pegged at over-the-top years ago.

    we need a new word for these bozos…..

    Posted by jimmy quest on 2006 10 14 at 05:59 PM • permalink

  14. Tim,
    Please mark your calendar for a year from now, when you can ask the question, “Who was Ned Lamont?” See how long it takes to get a correct answer.
    But remember, no googling!
    At least one person will suggest he was the guy in Deliverance that got his personal space invaded by a hillbilly. But no, that was Ned Beatty.

    Posted by Merlin on 2006 10 14 at 06:14 PM • permalink

  15. #14
    Reminds me of a joke from the 70s after the Commies kicked Alexander Solzhenitsyn out of Russia.  A Russian child in 2072 asks his father “Daddy who was Leonid Brezhbev?”

    “I think he was a politician who lived at the time of Solzhenitsyn, Sasha.”

    Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 10 14 at 07:01 PM • permalink

  16. Drive-by off-topic attack

    Detroit Tigers sweep Oakland!

    Posted by paco on 2006 10 14 at 08:25 PM • permalink

  17. Paco - mark your calendar for a week or so from now.

    Headlines will read:

    Mets sweep Tigers

    Posted by jlc on 2006 10 14 at 08:37 PM • permalink

  18. A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

    —Marcus Tullius Cicero

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 10 14 at 08:58 PM • permalink

  19. #17: Gotta beat the Cardinals first, amigo!

    Posted by paco on 2006 10 14 at 10:03 PM • permalink

  20. Mets are losing 5-0 right now. But I will adopt the eternal optimism of the North Koreans:

    If the Catholic Cardinals of the City of Louis the “so-called” Saint continue their aggression against the Great and Wondrous People’s Glorious Democratic Metropolitan Baseball Club, under the Enlightened Leadership of Brilliant and Courageous Manager William Il Randolph, such aggression will require the fair and unavoidable deployment of a massive and terrifying response that will shatter the illusions of the pathetic and sad running dogs of “Saint” Louis and make them cry like little girls.

    Posted by SoberHT on 2006 10 14 at 10:36 PM • permalink

  21. I don’t know this candidate’s position on other issues, but when it comes to illegal immigration, I like his style.

    Posted by paco on 2006 10 14 at 10:47 PM • permalink

  22. In re: my #21 - Incidentally, I don’t believe this article mentions it, but some posts at other blog sites indicate that he was accompanied by a Mariachi band.

    Posted by paco on 2006 10 14 at 10:50 PM • permalink

  23. gawenda has a long history as a writer who fails to check facts.  before he went to the smage, he was notorious for his badly researched and never checked feature articles.  he had a bit of flair, so editors let him get away with being sloppy with the truth.  running true to form with this article

    Posted by KK on 2006 10 14 at 11:40 PM • permalink

  24. #23 Such flair had he, they made him Editor in Chief.

    He did, to his credit, however, refuse to publish Loonig’s “Gates of Auschwitz” scribble in 2002.

    Medea Witch, on the other hand, felt it their duty to post it on their website.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 15 at 01:06 AM • permalink

  25. I’ve decided that I’m with the DNC and Kos and Ko. on this question.  I think that every single Democrat who voted for the war ought to be kicked out.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 10 15 at 01:07 AM • permalink

  26. Say, anyone else find it a bit odd that and article titled “D-Day for Democrats” is headed by a picture (and a poorly composed on at that) of George W. Bush—a Republican?

    I mean, surely Bettman Archives could have sold them at least one grainy photo of a Lieberman—preferably an “uncharismatic” one? By the way, I’ve heard Joe debate and if there’s one thing he ain’t, it’s “clumsy and tentative”.

    What a suckhole Gawenda is…

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 15 at 01:16 AM • permalink

  27. I’ll just say “pimf” for #26, too many mistakes to mention.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 15 at 01:18 AM • permalink

  28. I thought a Gawenda was something Paul Hogan ate in that first movie of his.

    My mistake.

    Must still be reeling from the utter brutality of banning the importation of luxury goods to the NK’s in that new UN resolution.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2006 10 15 at 02:21 AM • permalink

  29. #28, yojimbo:

    Yeah, no more luxury for the NKers but at least their Dear Leader can still get his rice hand picked, kernel by kernel.

    I wonder if “luxury” as defined by UN Charter covers having an Italian chef flown in to cook special order pizza?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 10 15 at 02:28 AM • permalink

  30. A comment from a reader of Instapundit

    MY EARLIER DISASTER PREPAREDNESS POST drew this email:

    Perhaps folks are buying the disaster kits in preparation for the Democratic takeover of Congress.

    Instapundit

    This just may happen…

    Why the sea of blue?

    This is not to say that all is lost. It is not written anywhere that the Republicans will lose more than 15 House and more than five Senate seats. The electorate’s punishment may, in the end, be less severe than that. My original prediction was, at best, an educated guess. But at this point, I’m not revising it in favor of the Republicans.

    Power Line

    Lieberman, at this point, looks safe. But he will be savaged by his former party.

    Kos Kids just may win a big one. To bad it’s peril for the U.S. Do ‘they’ give a damn, it’s not only NO, it’s HELL NO.

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 10 15 at 02:31 AM • permalink

  31. Sun Source for the DNC rhetoric and platform

    The Nov. 7 midterm elections are less than six weeks away. The stakes have never been so high: Control of the House and Senate and governorships nationwide. A recent poll shows that 75 percent of voters are disgusted by the Republican majority House and Senate, the highest disapproval rate since 1994. They are frustrated at Bush’s endless Iraq war, by Republican cronyism and corruption, tax giveaways to the rich, cutbacks in vital services, and criminal negligence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

    Bush’s policies of war and repression have made us less secure. The people are angry and they want change.

    Scraping the bottom in polls, Bush and the ultra-right attempted to change the subject back to the “war on terror.” The aim is to incite fear among voters and smear Democrats as “weak on national security.” But this time the “Swift Boat” tactics are falling flat.

    Still they haven’t given up on “fear and smear.” That’s why they are trying to ram through legislation to build a 700-mile fence along our border with Mexico, trying to criminalize immigrants. This is a desperate last minute attempt to win — or steal — the election by inciting racist hatred against immigrants and people of color. They are also attempting to pass legislation allowing torture and wiretapping and limiting voting rights, and pushed through the war appropriations in the last week of Congress.

    Most Republicans are running hard to distance themselves from Bush and

    Cheney. They can run but they can’t hide! Even so-called “moderate” Republicans supported Bush when the chips were down. We must not let their scam divert attention from the Republicans’ failure to provide the basic needs of the people.

    Whereas a few weeks ago only a handful of House and Senate seats were considered “competitive,” now more than 50 House seats are in play and more than a dozen Senate seats. A change of 15 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate would change control of Congress. Members of the congressional Progressive, Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific caucuses would chair half of the House committees and sub-committees.

    An end to the ultra-right control will give strength to the grassroots demands to enact pending legislation to end the Iraq war, end torture and spying, reallocate resources to hard-pressed cities, towns, and rural communities, and end Bush’s attempt to pack the courts. It will open the door for legislation to protect the civil rights of all. We can move long-stalled legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act, Medicare for All, and strengthen health and safety and environmental protection.

    But it’s not in the bag. In the countdown to the election, everyone must set aside business as usual. We must devote all our efforts to getting out the vote and insuring that the vote is counted.

    • Volunteer to phone bank with your union, neighborhood association or political organization.

    • Go door to door in your neighborhood or in citywide mobilizations on behalf of candidates you support.

    • Help distribute campaign literature including “A Call to Action: Defend Democracy, Change Congress.” Distribute the People’s Weekly World.

    • Know and discuss with voters the basic issues. Explain why changing Congress is so crucial to reversing the extremist, right-wing thrust of the Republicans.

    • Volunteer to be a poll watcher or election judge on Election Day.

    • “Protect the vote.” Volunteer with groups working to prevent the right wing’s “voter suppression” and “vote theft” tactics. Know the election laws and be an advocate for people whose right to vote is under attack.

    • Register your family, neighbors and co-workers to vote and bring them to the polls on Nov. 7.

    • Help give reminders and rides to get out the vote on Election Day.

    This is a fight we can win! If not us, then who? If not now, when?

    There is no longer even one degree of separation between the DNC and the Communist Party in the US.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 10 15 at 03:10 AM • permalink

  32. Grimmy.

    They can still fly the guy in but he can’t be wearing any of that Givenchy and Coach stuff.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2006 10 15 at 03:13 AM • permalink

  33. Speaking of Italians, with all that arm waving they do when talking, why didnt they invent sign language?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 10 15 at 04:33 AM • permalink

  34. #23 - Check facts? He was gawenda do it but fergot.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 10 15 at 06:59 AM • permalink

  35. wealthy, liberal & fierce?  ROFL give me a break.

    Posted by bill w on 2006 10 15 at 09:09 AM • permalink

  36. Lamontos, the Freshly-Forgotten.

    Posted by PW on 2006 10 15 at 09:36 AM • permalink

  37. Lamontos, the Freshly-Forgotten.

    Did you mean… Las Mentos and Diet Coke, the Fresh-n-Foamy?

    Posted by splice on 2006 10 15 at 11:05 AM • permalink

  38. Yes, paco, he did have a band.  It was all quite delicious.  Here’s the video.

    Maybe we should take up political theater ourselves to make our point.  Let’s all take Big Stuff across the Border!  Agitprop, people.  Puppets aren’t just for the left!

    Posted by Patricia on 2006 10 15 at 11:16 AM • permalink

  39. But, Patricia, I don’t want a big puppet head!

    Posted by ushie on 2006 10 15 at 12:30 PM • permalink

  40. Puppet schmuppet!  Elephants and mariachis, baby!  Who says the VRWC isn’t entertaining?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 10 15 at 03:32 PM • permalink

  41. I agree, puppets are tainted by their association with fanatics.  I admit elephants and mariachis are hard to beat.
     
    How about a line of Hummers, as far as the eye can see, snaking across the border—or a pack of Hells Angels?

    Posted by Patricia on 2006 10 15 at 04:02 PM • permalink

  42. For a moment, I thought you wrote, “a line of Mummers.”  That would also be fun.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 10 15 at 04:27 PM • permalink

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