Sen. Joe Lieberman tarred and feathered by narrow-minded liberal Democrats…

Most pundits would have you believe that yesterday’s Democratic primaries were so significant because the political life of Senator Joe Lieberman hung in the balance. Not so.

Because, despite his defeat, Lieberman’s political life is far from over. After all, he vowed some time ago – when polls were trending towards this result – that if Democrats abandon him in this primary, he would run as an Independent in November.

Moreover, since Independent voters outnumber Republicans and Democrats in Connecticut, chances are very good that he’ll retain his seat after all.

In fact, Lieberman’s race was significant because it – more than any other – exposed the fact that liberal Democrats have adopted the political traits they once reviled in conservative Republicans: intolerant of dissent, obsessed with one issue, bigoted and mean-spirited.

Indeed, only this perverse adoption explains why race-conscious firebrands like Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton conspired with white liberal bloggers to politically tar and feather Lieberman just because he does not share their visceral hatred of President George W. Bush or their congenital aversion to the war in Iraq. And, try as they might to argue that Lieberman deserved to be pilloried and scapegoated for abandoning Democratic Party values, the only argument that could possibly sustain their capricious wrath is that he failed to appreciate that: It’s the war stupid! (Emulating the code of fidelity for conservative Republicans, which holds that: It’s abortion stupid!)

Of course, even though there’s no reason to expect them to be consistent in this respect, it will be interesting to see how these “you’re either with us [in opposing this war] or against us” left-wing nuts deal with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and other Democrats (with presidential ambitions) who also committed the cardinal sin of supporting the Iraq war. Not surprisingly, these wannabe presidents have already begun kowtowing to their new Party whips to avoid the Lieberman treatment: John Edwards by disavowing his vote and begging forgiveness; Kerry by telling anyone who would listen that if he were president he would have done things much differently; and Hillary by calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s head in Senate hearings just last week….

Ironically, Lieberman did his best to explain that any perceived difference between him and these other Democrats had more to do with form than substance. But it did not matter. And so, just 6 years after Al Gore chose him as a VP running mate because Party leaders believed he, more than any other Democrat, could imbue the ticket with unquestionable political integrity, Lieberman had become a political tar baby.

It is instructive to note, however, that as Jackson, Sharpton and others were torpedoing Lieberman’s campaign, none other than Bill Clinton stood by his side – trying desperately to remind sensible Democrats about Lieberman’s bona fides: This, even though Lieberman was the first prominent Democrat to publicly censure him for his Monica Lewinsky affair. Unfortunately, this irony was completely lost on liberal Democrats.

Here (courtesy of John Dickerson of Slate) is what liberal blogger Jane Hamsher evidently thought her faithful Democratic readers would find an amusing portrayal of Clinton’s endorsement of Joe Lieberman. Mind you, these same liberals, led by Jackson and Sharpton, called President Vicente Fox a racist for, inter alia, endorsing his country’s commemorative stamps with traditional cartoon characters painted in black face…

But, as Lanny Davis lamented, these left-wing nuts have become so intoxicated with their own self-righteousness that they see nothing wrong with committing racist acts that would make Mel Gibson blush. I have no doubt, however, that they (and all Democrats who deferred to them) will rue the day they made such a mockery of their long-cherished political ideology by sacrificing this principled politician who showed his true profile in courage when he went to Mississippi during the 1960s to work for black civil rights.

Of course, to hear them cite Lieberman’s record on civil rights, one might get the impression he went to Mississippi to march with the Ku Klux Klan. Whereas, Lieberman’s only racial sin is that he dared to engage in an intellectual debate about how one reconciles group preferences with the constitutional guarantees of individual rights and equal protection. Yet, even Bill Clinton engaged in similar debates and proffered the notion of “mend it, don’t end it” to make Affirmative Action more tenable given today’s changed circumstances.

Nevertheless, I challenge anyone to find a single vote Lieberman has ever cast against Affirmative Action. After all, as recently as in 2000, he stated categorically on CNN:

Meanwhile, here’s who these left-wing nuts believe is a more suitable Democrat: