Joe Lieberman's Concern Trolling

Wikipedia defines a concern troll as "a pseudonym created by a user whose point of view is opposed to the one that the user's sockpuppet claims to hold. The concern troll posts in web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed 'concerns'. The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group."

This is prevalent in politics, with countless GOP operatives offering Democrats faux-advice, which basically amounts to telling them that if they don't do exactly what the GOP wants, they will lose badly (ie. this from 2006).

Karl Rove had a Wall Street Journal op-ed this past weekend along these lines, not only criticizing Democratic congressional efforts, but also offering his expert advice on how to get back on track. "No energy bill. No action on health care. No action on the mortgage crisis. No immigration reform," etc, he laments, inadvertently making the case for the larger Democratic majority needed to get all those things past GOP obstruction. How nice of the former architect of the permanent Republican majority-- how'd that work out, by the way?-- to be so helpful! :-D

Needless to say, Democrats tend to do very well when they ignore such 'advice'.

But the ultimate concern troll is Senator Joseph Lieberman, of the Connecticut for Lieberman party. Holding onto the spotlight as long as he can in the face of a certain increased Democratic Senate majority next year which will leave him irrelevant, Joe is offering advice to his former Democratic friends. Give peace war a chance!

(Hey, here's a health-care solution... bomb the HMOs! Victory through superior firepower!)

I found his statement this week proudly posted by the Bush cultists at Blogs for Bush. Since the full statement is ridiculously long, I will focus on the excerpt BFB posted. Let's begin-

"In the weeks and months after September 11, Democrats and Republicans put aside our partisan divisions and stood united as Americans. As late as October 2002, a Democratic-controlled Senate voted by a wide bipartisan margin to authorize President Bush to use military force against Saddam Hussein."

Unity = A hive-like, paranoid national mindset which tolerates no dissent, worships President Bush, and authorizes war without question or concern for the consequences? Truly the golden age of American civilization. More-

"As the Iraq war became bogged down in a long and costly insurgency, however, and as President Bush’s approval ratings slipped, Democrats moved in a very different direction—first in the presidential campaign of 2004, where antiwar forces played a decisive role in the Democratic primaries."

Ummm, I seem to recall you running against the President in that campaign, Joe. Why did you hate America? And that "long and costly insurgency" you mention was something the powers-that-be were deep, deep in denial about then. Of course, now (whenever that is) things are 'turning around'. As they always are.

As for "antiwar forces" playing the "decisive role" in those primaries, that must be why the cautious, originally pro-war John Kerry was nominated over the more populist, anti-war Howard Dean. Right? More-

"As you may recall, they also prevailed in Connecticut’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary last year."

Translation: 'Waaaaahhhhhhhhh!' Those pesky voters whom Joe Lieberman claims to represent disapproved of his performance and tried to take 'his' seat away in a process known as democracy! Luckily, our very mature Senator here is not at all bitter about it. More-

"Since retaking Congress in November 2006, the top foreign policy priority of the Democratic Party has not been to expand the size of our military for the war on terror..."

Yes, because an expanded military (hey it only constitutes a mere 50-55% of the federal budget!) is quite necessary to fight a small, but focused, group of guerillas operating out of deserts with no formal connections to any nation. Think of those poor starving defense contractors, Dems! :-( More-

"...or to strengthen our democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East..."

Riiiighhht, because this has been a very focused campaign. I think the Hamas election invalidated this cure-all, not to mention our support for the decidedly undemocratic Musharraf regime. Move on, Joe. More-

"...or to prevail in Afghanistan."

Because we all know how much the neocons really care about Afghanistan. More-

"It has been to pull our troops out of Iraq, to abandon the democratically-elected government there, and to hand a defeat to President Bush."

Actually, it's long been Bush's plan to hand off said defeat to his successor. More-

"No Democratic presidential primary candidate today speaks of America’s moral or strategic responsibility to stand with the Iraqi people against the totalitarian forces of radical Islam, or of the consequences of handing a victory in Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran."

Actually, they've all discussed this to some extent, but have also stated that our occupation of Iraq exacerbates the problem. As even the blessed Gen. Petraeus has acknowledged, it is only an internal political solution that will save Iraq, not military pressure. Oh, and kudos for sneaking an Iran mention in there, you sly dog. Finally-

"But another reason for the Democratic flip-flop on foreign policy over the past few years is less substantive. For many Democrats, the guiding conviction in foreign policy isn’t pacifism or isolationism— it is distrust and disdain of Republicans in general, and President Bush in particular."

Actually Joe, it is called... learning from your mistakes. You see, that is what grownups do. And they don't insist that those who don't share their worldview must simply have nothing deeper than personal hatred for them. If anything, Democrats have admittedly been quite lenient of Mr. Bush, all things considered.

In conclusion, insanity like this will be all over the place as the elections-- primary and general-- grow closer. They tried to scare Democrats away from taking on the President and his war last year and failed. They're hoping that being in power has made the Democrats cautious enough for it to succeed now. I hope they're wrong.