Amazingly absent from Daily Kos have been two major issues facing elected Democrats: the Lamont/Lieberman primary and the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. I realize that there have been other issues consuming our attention like the environment and transportation, but I feel the time has come to pay just due to these pressing matters.
First, you may be aware that last night we nominated a great man named Ned Lamont to run for Senate in Connecticut. This is particularly noteworthy because he defeated an incumbent Senator. That Senator in turn is going to run as an independent. This should make for interesting political theater, and I hope to see more Kos members writing diaries about this development. We've given it short shrift, but no more.
Second, there are two countries in the Middle East that don't really like each other right now. One is Israel (lotsa Jews there), and the other is Lebanon (lotsa Muslims, a few Christians, not so many Jews). In Lebanon is this group called Hizb'allah. They're terrorists...or freedom fighters...or political resistance...or a detergent, maybe all of the above. More after the flip.
Anyway, Hizb'allah incurred into Israel, killed a few people, kidnapped a couple others, and all hell broke loose. Israel unleashed the wrath of its mighty armed forces and blew up a ton of people and buildings. Given the humanitarian crisis, I think we could stand to pay more attention to this. Israel is a parliamentary democracy situated just north of Egypt, west of Jordan, and south of Lebanon. They have a really strong military. Lebanon is a budding democracy, recently freed from Syrian occupation. Their capital, Beirut, had become a symbol of Middle East cosmopolitanism. Now it's a symbol of war and destruction.
Ned Lamont is from Greenwich, and he has a lot of money, a progressive outlook, a people-powered campaign, and Kos on his TV ads. He believes in a troop pullout, real health care, and lots of other progressive things. Joe Lieberman is kind of a fuddy-duddy, is too cozy with Bush, and is probably the last Democrat in Congress who honestly believe going into Iraq was a peachy idea.
As we get closer to Election Day, I hope to have a frank discussion of these heretofore ignored issues. We do our best when we engage in real, honest dialogue with each other and the voters.