Kerry: Lieberman the New Cheney. SWNID: What's Wrong with That?

On "This Week with George Stephanopolis" John Kerry is reported to have "blasted" Joe Lieberman, specifically for "adopting the rhetoric of Dick Cheney."

This, of course, is Kerry's attempt at a bitter insult, like saying, "Your mother wears army boots."

But its power to insult depends entirely on one's evaluation of the predicate. To discuss chiastically, we begin with the latter insult. A mother who wears army boots is a source of pride to any child who believes that service in the armed forces is a noble and self-sacrificial act, suitable to both genders. And so the insult says more that is negative about the values and perceptions of the person who offers it than of its intended object.

So likewise, for those who pay attention to the real Dick Cheney--a man whose considerable record of scholarship, public service and private enterprise is not the fantasy of evil created by left-wing bloggers and columnists--the assertion of any similarity to Mr. Cheney is naturally construed as complimentary.

SWNID fancies ourself able to remember events of the distant past--like six years ago. We recall that the acknowledged highlight of the 2000 presidential campaign was the vice-presidential debate at Kentucky's Centre College between one Dick Cheney and one Joe Lieberman. Pundits and pols alike lauded both candidates for their reasoned, civil, rational and even courageous discussion of issues. Campaign talking points were significantly less in evidence than in the presidential debates, as both vice-presidential candidates exercised a willingness to discuss isssues on their merits and out of their own considerable experience and expertise.

So it's no suprise, really, that Lieberman should sound like Cheney, and no insult for either to be compared to the other.

Too bad Kerry can't remember back that far. Perhaps he can't remember because his consciousness is so full of the subjunctive that he has no cognitive room from the indicative. To wit, once again Kerry intoned what a hypothetical Kerry-Edwards administration would have done with the present Middle-Eastern distress: "I know that I would have handled the diplomacy."

In other confusions of fantasy with fact, Kerry intoned that Lieberman is out of step with the voters of Connecticut, this despite Lieberman's substantial lead in current polls regarding the general election. But perhaps it is Republicans who give Lieberman his edge in November, and so perhaps Mr. Kerry advocates the statutory disenfranchisement of all registered Republicans because of their association with the Evil Genius Dick Cheney.

Once again, like a voice crying in the wilderness, we plead with members of the opposition party to get serious. When losing general elections with positions grounded in the discredited ideology of the extreme left is seen as a badge of honor among Democrats, our republic is ill served by its two-party system.