Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

There’s been a little tug of war going on in blogdom – and in other places – between Lanny Davis, author of “ Scandal: How 'Gotcha' Politics Is Destroying America ,” and Gotcha monger Colin McEnroe, the host of an eponymous radio program and the author of “ Lanny Davis Is (Still) An Emu ." The two are bickering over the question, "Is Sen. Joe Lieberman a Democrat?" (Short answer, yes and no) and a related question, "Is Lieberman a tolerable human being?" Lanny says yes; McEnroe, occasionally given to wondering why Lieberman has not appeared on his radio talk show lately, says no. In a short column printed in the Hartford Courant, McEnroe’s stomping grounds, Davis asserts that Lieberman – with the exception of his support of the war on jihadism – has been a good liberal Democrat, and he adduces the senator’s votes as proof. Lieberman has voted with Democrats 90% of the time, and he still caucuses even with Democrats whooping it up in the anti-war camp. ...

President George Bush’s efforts to support democratic movements everywhere in the world – but most especially in former soviet block nations like Ukraine – may come back to bite him in Latin America. Under the increasingly anti-democratic regime of Vladimir Putin, Russia appears to be sinking back into the ice age of Breshnev styled communism. Putin seems to be especially perturbed that Bush backed pro-Western Victor Yushchenko as president in the former soviet colony. Chavez was warmly received by Putin in Moscow just before Ukraine asserted its independence of its former overlord and gave the boot to Moscow’s preferred candidate. When the Bush administration recently lodged a formal protest with Russia for having supplied the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez with some 100,000 AK-47 rifles, the protest likely fell on deaf ears. The rifles – to be used, reliable analysts suppose, to support left wing movements in Latin America, and also to arm communist street gangs charged with el...

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State designate Condoleezza Rice said that the South Asia tsunami disaster was “a wonderful opportunity” to show how the U.S. government and its people could respond compassionately to a tragedy. A surly Senator Boxer of California responded, “The tsunami was one of the worse tragedies of our lifetime, and its going to have ten year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity.” Inquiring minds want to know: What was it exactly that disappointed Boxer? Certainly Rice did not say that the tsunami was wonderful. Far from it; she clearly said it was a tragedy, and tragedies are by definition unpleasant and less than wonderful. If Rice had pruned the adjective “wonderful” and said the tsunami tragedy presented “an opportunity” for the U.S. to display its compassion, she would have been repeating a remark made by countless Democrats and political comme...