{"id":1223,"date":"2006-09-29T01:18:52","date_gmt":"2006-09-29T01:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-29T01:31:48","modified_gmt":"2006-09-29T01:31:48","slug":"a_new_definitio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1223","title":{"rendered":"A New Definition Of ‘Chutzpah’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an old joke in which “chutzpah” (Yiddish for ‘nerve’) is defined by a young man who has killed both his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.<\/p>\n

Today, we have a new definition.<\/p>\n

Political seer Matt Stoller writes about Joe Lieberman<\/a> (in response to Lieberman’s interview at Pajamas Media):<\/p>\n

Lieberman is throwing the whole party under the bus. It’s time for 2008 candidates to step up.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matt, let me say here and publicly that this proves you’re an idiot. Lieberman didn’t throw the party under the bus – you tried to throw him under it, and are going to fail, and are being petulant about it.<\/p>\n

How did you think he was going to respond? By sending flowers? By campaigning to lose so you’d approve of him? Christ, you’re even stupider than I thought you were if that’s the case – and that’s pretty stupid. Or, alternatively, you’ve set the new standard for chutzpah.I said it once<\/a> and still stand by it:<\/p>\n

Ask yourself this, if you’re all excited at the notion of Lieberman running against Lamont as an independent. Who do you think is going to be sitting in the Dirksen Building in February of ’07? Lamont? In a state that was – in 2004 – 44 percent unaffiliated, 34 percent Democratic, and 22 percent Republican. Come Election Day, what exactly do you think is going to happen?<\/p>\n

\nAnd when Lieberman is sitting in his Senate office next year, do you think the Democratic Party will be stronger or weaker for his departure?<\/p>\n

\nI say it will be weaker.<\/p>\n

\nIt will be weaker because a losing Lamont candidacy will not have local and regional coattails as large as Lieberman’s – and I somehow don’t see Lieberman doing a lot of campaigning for downballot offices in the next few months.<\/p>\n

\nIt will be weaker because a senior sitting senator will owe very little allegiance to the national party.<\/p>\n

\nWeaker because other senior officials will sit and weigh the cost of party allegiance against the benefit, and will have a concrete example of what party loyalty buys.<\/p>\n

\nSo when such bloggers as Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Chris Bowers, Jerome Armstrong and Jane Hamsher preen that they have pushed “Rape Gurney Joe” (Hamsher’s sobriquet) off the island, there’s only one problem: They think they are winning in doing so. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right, then. See you all at the inauguration in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an old joke in which “chutzpah” (Yiddish for ‘nerve’) is defined by a young man who has killed both his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. Today, we have a new definition. Political seer Matt Stoller writes about Joe Lieberman (in response to Lieberman’s interview at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}