"I expect that my opponent will continue to do in the general election what he has done in the primary ... partisan polarizing instead of talking about how we can solve people's problems, insults instead of ideas. In other words, more of the same old partisan politics that has assailed Washington today."

--Joe Lieberman, August 8th, 2006

Joe Lieberman says he hates partisan polarizers, but it occurs to me that I have never once heard him condemn partisanship from Republicans. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Either way, if Joe Lieberman really is bi-partisan, he could demonstrate it by condemning all of the partisan polarizing Republicans are doing in the wake of his defeat last Tuesday. Since they are using his defeat to conduct their partisan polarization, no one's condemnation of these words would mean more than Joe Lieberman's. This makes for the perfect chance for Joe Lieberman to demonstrate how anti-partisanship he really is, and that he is truly committed to ending partsan polarization in Washington, D.C. Via Georgia10, here are some examples of the partisan polarization to which I am referring:

• Cal Thomas:
  The narrow primary defeat of veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary is more than a loss for one man. It is a loss for his party and for the country. It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing.
• Bill O'Reilly:
  Yesterday, Bill O'Reilly said that Joe Lieberman's defeat in the Connecticut primary was "a chilling indication of what lies ahead in American politics." O'Reilly said, "Iran's betting we Americans have no will to restrain their jihad." According to O'Reilly the results of the Connecticut primary shows Iran "might be right."
• Tony Snow:
  Tony Snow claimed that last night's Connecticut Senate primary gave voters the chance to answer the question, "Do you take the war on terror seriously?" Snow said that Connecticut voters who backed Ned Lamont (and the 57 percent of Americans who support his position on Iraq) were choosing to "ignore the difficulties and walk away." That is the same approach, he said, that led Osama bin Laden to the conclusion "that Americans were weak and wouldn't stay the course and that led to September 11th."
• Dick Cheney:
  Cheney said that to "purge a man like Joe Lieberman" was "of concern, especially over the issue of Joe's support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror." He explained:
  
  The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.
• Tom DeLay:
  Just now on Fox News, criminally indicted ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) said that liberals "don't want to fight this war on terrorism." DeLay described the liberal world view as "Can't we all get along?" and said that liberals' reaction to a terrorist attack is, "You can't go after these wonderful people that just killed a bunch of Americans."
• The Republican National Committee:
  I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for the GOP choosing to make Howard Dean look like Hitler on its official website. Atrios posted this screen grab:
  Click here to see the picture

It would be nice, Senator Lieberman, to have some assistance on beating back these harsh, partisan attacks. Since these attacks were made because you lost, and because you have promised to help bring an end to polarizing, partisan politics in Washington, there is no one better able to help discredit and beat back these attacks than you. If, on television, you publicly denounce these attacks and their attackers by name for their polarizing partisanship in relation to your Senate campaign, I will publicly eat crow on my blog that you are in fact more willing to bring an end to partisan politics than I believed. I will, of course, expect that you continue to denounce these polarizing, partisan attacks by conservatives, but I'll eat some crow. Seriously--it wouldn't be the first time.

By way of contrast, if you do not denounce these attacks and the attackers by name, I will continue to assume that you don't care about partisan politics, you just care about developing a campaign line in order to stay in power. I will say that you are worried about alienating yourself from the Republican voters you need to win this election, instead of being focused on doing the right thing as you always claim to be. I will say that you have no problem condemning Democrats for partisanship in order to make yourself look better, but that you refuse to condemn Republicans who are the main source of polarizing politics in Washington. But since I was planning on saying all that about you anyway, you have nothing to lose by making me eat a little crow, and by trying to bring civility to this election.

I eagerly await positive action on your behalf to help bring an end to polarizing, partisan politics.