"Holy Joe" Lieberman claims to be more religious and more moral than you or me. And he applies his high moral standards by refusing to criticize Bush in the name of "civility."

But Lieberman's allies at the Wall Street Journal are demonizing progressives:

Mr. Lieberman will still be favored to win the primary, but angry-left activists around the country will now descend on the state and the fight may well turn vicious.

The left's larger goal is to turn the Democratic Party solidly against the war on terror, and especially against its Iraq and Iran fronts. Mr. Lamont's performance will be noticed by Democratic Presidential hopefuls, some of whom (Al Gore, John Kerry) are already maneuvering to get to Hillary Rodham Clinton's antiwar left. Well before 2008, this passion will also drive sentiment among Democrats on Capitol Hill. If they recapture either the House or the Senate this fall, a legislative drive to withdraw from Iraq cannot be ruled out.

We doubt all of this will help Democrats with the larger electorate, which whatever its doubts about Iraq does not want a precipitous surrender. Americans haven't trusted a liberal Democrat with the White House during wartime since Vietnam, which is when the seeds of the current antiwar rage were planted. The great mistake that leading Democrats and anti-Communist liberals made during Vietnam was not speaking up against a left that was demanding retreat and sneering at our war heroes. Will any Democrat speak up now?

And Lieberman's allies at the DLC are smearing Paul Krugman and Markos Moulitsas:

While Commissar Krugman kvetches from the cozy confines of the Princeton faculty lounge that Joe is insufficiently following the party line of the Upper West Side, the good Senator will press forward fighting for the cause of Scoop Jackson progressivism [sic]. And, when will the press focus on the fact that Mr. Lamont chose a co-star for his first commercial who once denigrated the deaths of Americans at the hands of terrorists?

So how quickly will Lieberman denounce his uncivil allies? We're waiting...

Update 1: Kos replies to the WSJ.

If there's a rule about "concern trolls" on the Right, it's that whatever they advice Democrats to do, we should do the opposite.

The Wall Street Journal is worried that the American people will speak this election on neocon's precious little war and truly force us out of that debacle. They don't want their world rocked by the reality of public sentiment on Iraq.

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