Pander

And let’s be clear about Joe Lieberman and the mealymouthed MSM so-called pundits who seem genuinely aghast at his losing the Connecticut Democratic Primary to Ned Lamont. They seemed shocked and awed that poor Joe had been so readily trashed. As Eric Boehlert has catalogued some of these pundits [The Nation, August 11, 2006], Al Hunt (Bloomberg News), David Brooks (New York Times), Joe Klein (Time), and David Gergen (US News), for example, were all pissing and moaning about what a fine, sweet, decent, intelligent, kind-hearted, well-intentioned, and likable guy their old pal Joe is and what a disaster his defeat would be for the balance of power in this country. First of all, what balance of power? Then you might wonder about these pundits’ motives and their unmitigated gall. A pundit, incidentally, is supposed to be “a learned man,” an informed commentator, defined in Webster’s also as “a person who gives opinions in an authoritative manner usually through the mass media.” Well, they do give opinions but apparently not learned ones. These MSM pundits seem to be taking this so personally. You'd think Lieberman was their love child. How could the voters, actual American citizens, do this to such a nice guy? Well, the truth is this guy may not be so nice, after all, now that he is out there defensively strutting his stuff with a somewhat sanctimonious swagger. And during his terms in office he has appeared alternately as a namby-pamby, egotistical, and self-righteous sycophant pretty much out for himself. He does not seem to exhibit any serious vision or geopolitical intelligence. After all these years, what is his legacy? Aside from buttressing pharma firms at home and a war movie in Iraq, what is his platform? Simply being nice? To the right people on K Street, perhaps. In fact, he comes off more as a pussy than a politician even. And now, backed into a corner, he’s beginning to sound a little arrogant. He is a caricature, and the administration loves him. They love to sweep the floor with him. And with his obsequious pandering he has become “a disaster for the Democratic Party,” as Cokie Roberts actually characterized his opposition. Martin Peretz at The New Republic apparently feels threatened by the “thought-enforcers of the left.” The what? What are these people smoking? But then, the word pundit is from the Hindu pandit which sounds suspiciously symbiotic to pander.