The following story might be old news to those who follow politics in the Nutmeg State, but I’ve not heard much debate about it.
You might remember some recent discussion in the news about Connecticut Democrats backing away from supporting incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman after his primary loss to Ned Lamont. Among those who conspicuously dropped public support was Lieberman’s Senate colleague, fellow Democrat Christopher Dodd.
Future JLF speaker Matthew Continetti remarked on Dodd’s actions in his Weekly Standard report about the Lamont-Lieberman primary election:
A little after 11 P.M., Lieberman took the stage and told the crowd that he had called Lamont with his congratulations. His family surrounded him. Conspicuously absent were Lieberman’s Senate colleague, Chris Dodd, who had been hanging out in the hotel lobby hours before, and Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal, who had spent much of the evening greeting voters in the hotel atrium.
Later in the report:
There were local repercussions, too. On August 9, in the state Democratic party’s offices on the third floor of a run-down office building near the Hartford train station, Lamont appeared at a “unity” event alongside Connecticut’s Democratic officials, including Sen. Dodd and Attorney General Blumenthal. (At the press conference that followed, Dodd mentioned that he had not spoken to Lieberman since the previous evening.) Each of the Democrats pledged to support Lamont and gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano, the mayor of New Haven.
Why do I remind you of this week-old report? I’ve been reading the book Reagan In His Own Hand (Touchstone, 2001), a collection of essays and radio commentaries from our 40th president.
Included is a four-page essay written circa 1963. Its title: “Are Liberals Really Liberal?” In it, the future president notes that the same liberals who defended the free speech rights of Communists actively worked to prevent anti-Communists from sharing their views at public meetings across the country.
As an example, Reagan writes about a book prepared by the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education (COPE). The book includes names of targeted anti-Communists.
Since I supported political candidates opposed by “Cope,” and oppose much legislation endorsed by “Cope,” my presence in the book is to be expected. But how do Liberals explain the presence in the book of a Liberal Democratic Senator whose voting record is almost one hundred percent liberal, pro labor and welfare state? As a matter of fact the Liberal wing of the Democratic party has slated Senator Dodd for elimination in 1964. One can only assume that his liberalism isn’t enough to offset his strong, intelligent and thoroughly responsible anti-communism.
The “Senator Dodd” referenced is Chris Dodd’s father — Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut.
After reading that passage this evening, I was struck by the following parallels. Take the italicized paragraph above and replace the following words: “the netroots” for “Cope,” “negative blogs” for “the book,” “Lieberman” for “Dodd,” “2006” for “1964,” and “anti-Islamofascism” for “anti-communism.”
Do you think the current Sen. Dodd has seen the similarities?