NY Times Endorses Ned Lamont

In today's New York Times there is an editorial entitled "A Senate Race in Connecticut."

It is a calm, rational explication of why Connecticut Democrats should, instead of supporting the incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman, vote for his upstart challenger, Ned Lamont.

Here is some of what the Times says on the subject:

"This primary would never have happened absent Iraq. It’s true that Mr. Lieberman has fallen in love with his image as the nation’s moral compass. But if pomposity were a disqualification, the Senate would never be able to call a quorum. [...]

Mr. Lieberman is not just a senator who works well with members of the other party. And there is a reason that while other Democrats supported the war, he has become the only target. In his effort to appear above the partisan fray, he has become one of the Bush administration’s most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates. [...]

If Mr. Lieberman had once stood up and taken the lead in saying that there were some places a president had no right to take his country even during a time of war, neither he nor this page would be where we are today. But by suggesting that there is no principled space for that kind of opposition, he has forfeited his role as a conscience of his party, and has forfeited our support."

I've left out the specifics of the piece because you can go and read them for yourself -- the gist is clear. This country is in a great moral crisis, and in that crisis Joe Lieberman didn't just do nothing -- he sided with the people who were turning this nation into the kind of country we usually fight wars against.

I congratulate the Times on endorsing Lieberman's rival, Ned Lamont, in the Democratic primary. All I can say is -- what took you so long?

Tom Moran