All I could get from that is that Lieberman's detractors don't think he's Jewish enough. Since I'm not a Jew, I don't find that a compelling argument.

Yeah, I also don't get the bit where he asks "Is making history more important than making [a desecration of the Creator's name]?" I thought that Jews were against desecrating the Creator's name.

Dean: You should read that copy of Danny Goldberg's book, "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" that I gave you for your birthday last summer.

In the book, Goldberg finds plenty of reasons to dislike Joe that have NOTHING to do with his degree of observance of Judaism. And that is as it should be.

Heaven knows there is plenty of discussion in the Jewish community about the relative wisdom of voting for a Jewish candidate for President, post-9/11. I know MANY people in this community who are queasy at the thought of a Jewish President at this time in our history. But frankly, I ignore that kind of talk. It's a variant on the mindset that said Jewish people shouldn't speak up about the Holocaust during World War II because it would rock the boat.

Feh.

Goldberg sees it in another context. He feels very strongly that for the Dems to survive, they must encourage young people to join the Democrat Party. And the best way to do that is to show support for their cultural values as expressed in their music, movies, books, etc.

In short, don't cede the hipness factor to the GOP. Yet, bizarrely enough, that is exactly what has happened.

Ever check out who's the governor of California these days? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Joe Lieberman (in Goldberg's view) is not only terminally unhip, he is hostile to hipness.

In fact, in the last election, Joe Lieberman led the charge (in Goldberg's view) against freedom of speech. That's a really toxic view for a Democrat to take. Hell, even Michael Dukakis was firmly pro-ACLU.

For this alone, Goldberg's opinion of Joe Lieberman is, well, pretty scathing. Not even Al Gore, hell not even Tipper Gore who invented record labelling of content, comes in for the kind of disdain that Goldberg heaps on Joe Lieberman.

And Howard Dean and John Kerry are the essence of hipness? Please. Joe's at least got a schlubbish charisma that's appealing.

I don't think Joe's time has passed, by the way. He's still in the lead in many of the national polls.

I also think Danny Goldberg's terminally silly: on many of the issues today, young people are NOT on the side of the Democratic Establishment. They're more conservative on abortion than their parents, they're more supportive of the war in Iraq and the war on terror than older people, and they overwhelmingly support ideas like social security privatization and a flattened tax structure. When I read that Danny Goldberg thought that young people naturally believed in the Limousine Liberal value set he treasured, he lost me, and I confess I didn't finish his book, although I did read parts of it. It seems so utterly condescending: if you're 25, you'll naturally vote the Democratic party line just as long as the candidate seems hip and cool!

I think the South Park Republicans are the wave of the future, and if Dems want to capture the youth vote they need to start focusing on issues that will attract those young people. They're more conservative on abortion than their parents (sorry Danny Goldberg, but they are), they want social security privatization BIG TIME (sorry again, Danny), they resent wealthy, well-off blacks benefitting from "Affirmative Action" and using their minority status as a weapon against others, the are quite open-minded on school choice, and they generally DO NOT resent "the rich" even if they have issues with corporate power and high-handedness.

In other words, the real "wave of the future" is the South Park Republicans, and if Dems want the youth vote, they'd do well to reconsider some of their worship of some of the sacred cows that drive their agenda right now, and look at what young people really think about the issues.

Howard Dean can talk all he wants about how many young people support him. Look at the polls on the issues: young people for the most part aren't on his side. All he's doing is attracting the Anger Vote, and even if he should win the Presidency, the country will be more divided than ever. In all age brackets.

Joe Lieberman is far from perfect, but as politicians go he's not too bad at all.

He's a lying two faced hypocrite who is more interested in power than anything else, but then, that's what makes a politician, innit?

So, Gary, you're saying he's perfectly normal then, eh? :)