I watched with some interest the blogospheric debate last week over Peter Beinart’s TRB column for the New Republic about Joe Lieberman and his critics. Markos went after Beinart, with some justice (and a lot of unnecessary abuse) for conflating ideological and purely partisan grievances about Lieberman. But I have to say he missed the important point in Beinart’s piece, which was that both Joe and Joe-haters are in danger of treating the Iraq War as the only issue that really matters. Markos’ defense of Joe-hating cites Lieberman’s status as “the go-to guy whenever the press needs a Democrat to bash another Democrat.” Maybe I’ve missed something, but I can’t really think of any examples where Lieberman has bashed Democrats on any subject other than Iraq.Indeed, the only non-Iraq issue that Markos cites against Lieberman is this: “[He] rolled over during the recount in 2000 without fighting for the victory Gore had earned.”And that’s just a bad case of revisionist history. Put aside for a moment the fact that Al Gore, in the opinion of most objective observers from both parties, would have won decisively if he and Bob Shrum had not perversely refused to run on the successful policy record of the Clinton-Gore administration (“I’m Clinton without the sex” was the message even a child would have understood). Within the tortured and limited view of the election in Florida, Al Gore would not have been competitive in that state without Lieberman’s presence on the ticket. And even when it came down to the Florida recount, Lieberman’s alleged “rollover”–his repudiation of any plan to issue wholesale challenges of overseas military ballots–was a tiny factor compared to the Gore High Command’s bad decision to demand a selective instead of a statewide recount, which proved disastrous when the Florida Supreme Court predictably authorized the latter when it was too late. Tie elections obviously make it possible to cite any particular factor as critical, but blaming ’00 on Joe is just wrong. Hell, the U.S. Supreme Court would have handed the election to Bush even if the Gore-Lieberman campaign had violated its principles by tossing out a few military ballots. So I would say to JoePhobes: express your opinion, and make your case; but don’t let’s get dishonest and blame the man for the fact that he, not Dick Cheney, should currently be Vice President of the United States.