Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

A video that explores Sen. Barack Obama's "refinements" of his position(s) on the largely successful Iraq War, out just in time for his expected trip to the Middle East.

Sen. Barack Obama has now left Wesleyan, where he stood in for the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy and delivered a commencement speech . He was under an obligation not to be too political in his remarks; no one wanted Wesleyan to lose federal funds because of his appearance. Apparently, under federal regulations, a private university cannot abide political speeches from aspiring presidential candidates without risking federal funding. Obama was also obliged to say something swell about the Kennedys. These obligations naturally put a strain on political discourse. But he steered around the pilings with great agility and ended up complimenting Jack, the architect of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and Bobby and Teddy. According to an AP report in the Journal Inquirer , “Barack Obama urged college graduates Sunday to ‘make us believe again’ by dedicating themselves to public service. We may disagree as Americans on certain issues and positions, but I believe we can be unified in service to a greater g...

Yesterday’s question concerning the war in Iraq – “Are we winning or losing?” – has given way to today’s question – “Is Iraq Vietnam?” The question arose because President George Bush in a recent speech at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention hinted that a retreat from Iraq would be attended by consequences similar to the retreat from Vietnam. "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam,” Bush said, “is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens.” This has prompted a “discussion” – really, more like a bar room brawl – that Bush cannot win. A quick glance at the discussion on the weekend following Bush’s analogy will show why. The Hartford Courant and one of its lead commentators – Bill Curry , once an advisor to former President Bill Clinton, once a student anti-Vietnam war protestor – were very quickly out of the gate. Mr. Curry has told us that in writing his columns he often consults with name Carolyn Lumsden , now the Editorial page editor of...

In the end, the difference between the senatorial races in Connecticut and Rhode Island proved to be more important than their similarities. The Rhode Island primary race pitted Republican U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee against conservative opponent Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey; the Connecticut race pitted Democrat U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman against progressive candidate Ned Lamont. The cheering sections for each insurgent were far different. Lamont’s campaign was pushed forward by progressives warming their hands around blog bonfires. Lieberman parted company with the progressive wing of his party – the Democrat Party no longer has a conservative wing – on the issue of the Iraq war when he publicly supported President Bush’s view of the conflict, a posture that aroused the antipathies of progressives at a time when the war was retrogressing. National Republicans – not conservatives; they are not the same thing – formed an important part of Chaffe’s cheering section. Fearing a loss of suppo...

The whole gang was there at the Carpenters Union Hall in Hartford's South End to wish Sen. Joe Lieberman a happy 64th birthday and to banish the ghost that for nearly a month had been haunting the Democrat Party. The ghost’s name is Ned Lamont, a Greenwich millionaire, anti-war enthusiast and possible primary opponent. Weeks earlier, supposing some difference between the two Democrat senators on the Iraq war, the Hartford Courant began to arrange the “debate” shown on Fox News’ “Between the Lines.” The differences between the two senators, as it turned out, were slight. Both agreed that the United States had entered the war on faulty premises, largely owing to bad intelligence and false assumptions. Weapons of mass destruction – what Aristotle might have called the proximate cause of the war – were nowhere to be found. Some have suggested that Iraqi chemical weapons had been shuttled off to Syria prior to the invasion. Others have suggested that Saddam Hussein was intent on deceivi...

The short answer to your question, Virginia, is: Yes, there is a Democratic Party here in Connecticut. There are at least two, possibly as many as three or four in-state Democratic Parties. The Republican Party, as you may know, is little more than a Potemkin village governed by village idiots. As both political parties shed their substance and become more moderate, they assume a ghostly shape and become mere shadows of what they once were. It was not always so. Every so often, one finds a person who possesses what used to be called an institutional memory. Nowadays we call such people “party activists,” and they are especially energetic during primaries. But wait … I see I shall have to explain what a primary is. I think you have a rudimentary notion of what a political party is: It’s a political organization centered in a body of ideas designed to elect people to office. Primaries were supposed to wrest from party bosses decision making powers concerning what people shall occupy po...