OT - but interesting. Walter Shapiro on Lieberman

[whometense]

in today's Salon. An

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/30/lieberman/

Some good points about Lieberman and ther blogoshpere:

...Other Democrats are forgiven their ideological transgressions, but never Lieberman. In Pennsylvania, Senate challenger Bob Casey has overwhelming party support even though he is antiabortion and supported Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. (Lieberman, in contrast, is pro-choice and voted against Alito.) It is almost forgotten that California Sen. Dianne Feinstein supported all of Bush's deficit-creating 2001 tax cuts. (Lieberman voted against them.) And Hillary Clinton, the winter-book favorite for the 2008 nomination, has not exactly been marching in antiwar demonstrations...

On Iraq:

But what rankles liberals the most is Lieberman's refusal, even now, to give ground on the war. Appearing on "Face the State," a half-hour interview show that aired on Hartford television (WFSB) last Sunday, Lieberman said about Iraq, "I've been there four times now. I can tell you that about two-thirds of Iraq is pretty peaceful. Around the Sunni Triangle, around Baghdad, that's the worst part. And that's getting better."

Such an optimistic, glass-half-full view of Iraq is not shared by most Democrats in Lieberman's home state. This partially explains one of the oddest survey results of the 2006 campaign season: According to a mid-February Quinnipiac University poll, Lieberman has a higher approval rating among Connecticut Republicans (71 percent) than Democrats (57 percent). Still, most Democratic senators with overall 63 percent approval and no serious Republican opponent would be tempted to prematurely break out the election-night champagne.

He also visits with Ned Lamont. Good read.