DERANGING THE LANDSCAPE:

No More Joe: `Dead Wrong' On The War And Defense Of Bush, White House Excesses (Irving Stolberg, 7/23/06, Hartford Courant)

Joe Lieberman and I have been friends and colleagues for 38 years. We ran for and won seats in the Connecticut legislature as a team of reformers in 1970. He was my state senator and I was his state representative. He rose to Senate majority leader as I became speaker of the House. With others, we formed the Caucus of Connecticut Democrats, a progressive coalition, to further the causes of peace in Vietnam and justice at home.

I have supported him in every election he has had - until now. This year I am supporting Ned Lamont to unseat Joe. [...]

His blind support of the Iraq war, begun illegally and a continuing catastrophe, is monstrous.

And his defense of an incompetent president, a vice president who fits the dictionary definition of fascism and an extremist administration that has perpetrated torture, illegal eavesdropping and a general shredding of the Constitution is insulting to the people who elected him in the first place. [...]

His announcement that he will not support the winner of the Democratic primary but will seek election as an independent if he loses the primary seems to put self above principle. I thank Ned Lamont, a good and decent man, for giving the people of Connecticut a real choice. We need someone who will confront the Bush-Cheney evils of lies, manipulation and incompetence, which have done us so much harm at home and abroad.

This kind of hateful loopiness has become so routine that sometimes it pays to stand back for a moment and reflect on the situation: This is a mainstream figure -- a two-time former speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives -- who tosses off words like "monstrous" and "fascism" to describe his political opponents. And every indication is that he means it.