The Anchoress

I mean…this is how they treat their friends?.

You must know what I’m talking about, right? The Lieberman-in-blackface nonsense that had been posted over at Huffpo, until it was taken down.

Joe Lieberman, former Veep candidate, former “conscience of the senate,” has the temerity - the unmitigated gall - to stick by his own opinions and principals instead of simply “falling in line,” as Hillary once demanded (“you don’t have to fall in love, just fall in line…”). He refuses to kowtow to the unhinged section of the left. He refuses to dance around the war and his vote okaying it, as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and all the rest of them, who - if you want to use black stereotypes - have become veritable Bojangles on the issue.

And for that - for daring not to be owned by anyone on that “plantation” Hillary loves to talk about - he’s being treated abominably…by people who will proclaim (with straight faces) that they are “tolerant” and “open-minded” and that they believe “people are entitled to their opinions.”

Well…that’s what liberalism was when I was being raised as a liberal, by liberals. Liberalism these days seems to be about doing what you’re told to do, saying what you’re told to say and falling in line…or paying very dearly if you do not.

I’m just astonished. And sickened.

The world is in astonishing crisis and it is a crisis that has been over 30 years in the making. It is a crisis that started with the deposing of a Shah, the impotent response to hostage-taking, and more, and more, and more - none of it ever addressed or dealt with until it absolutely had to be, and even then, it’s being addressed more with kid gloves and french-service than with decisive action.

And what is the left doing, while this crisis swirls and gathers momentum? Why, they’re putting their principled leadership in blackface, giggling that the president said a bad word or that he’s a stupid poopyhead. They are writing love poems to Hezbollah, they are finding a foolish scapegoat for their own anti-semitism buying property like stalkers to insure their photo-ops.

They are not, notice, offering real, substantial suggestions on how to improve any of swirling problems they looooove to talk about. They’re getting defeated when voting against coastal oil drilling, they’re worrying that advertisers are going to put implants into kids brains, they’re declaring that if only they were president Israel would be at peace with her neighbors - you know, the neighbors who want to drive them into the sea or just kill all Jews with missiles. They’re, even ummm…no, really, I’m serious, blaming George W. Bush for not taking care of Castro and Cuba.

“It is time for the Bush administration to offer a real plan to help the Cuban people finally get the freedom they deserve. In addition, we need to continue supporting those who have been leading the call for democracy and freedom within the island.”
- Harry Reid

Because before President George W. Bush, of course, there was no problem with Cuba.

They’re not making an argument. They offer no vision. They’re not offering ideas beyond “let’s pull out of Iraq, because that worked so well in Vietnam!”. Oh, and everything is Bush’s fault. Or at least that’s what Nancy take-down-the-president-and-make-him-pay Pelosi has indicated.

Joe Lieberman is being challenged by a lightweight opportunist and the perpetual adolescents who should be standing up and “defending his right to his opinion” even if they disagree, are acting like…well…like perpetual adolescents. Hey, he’s on the Colbert Report…he must be the guy to vote for.

I’m just…all astonishment. I know, I shouldn’t be so shocked. But I am. Maybe that’s why I can’t get better.

Also covering: Decision ‘08 notices the blackface picture was taken down without explanation or apology. Classy, as usual. Mark has written an open letter to Arianna Huffington asking her to address the matter forthrightly.
Right Wing News
Ed Driscoll remembers the “tar baby” gasps.
Blue Crab Boulevard
Expose the Left
Ed Morrissey is wondering about things and linking to some interesting commentary, in cluding Hugh Hewitt, who tries to square Huffington’s silence on this matter after her apparent noise about Mel Gibson.
Ace explains why even if you are not a racist, blackface is understood to be racially insensitive. Except, I guess, when it’s done on the left. They’re so pure, they must have good and excusable reasons for it.