Lieberman's Switch?

Republicans' hearts are all aflutter at the "remote possibility" that Lieberman would switch parties. The factor that Lieberman has to be aware of, though, is that there are very good reasons to think that the Democrats are going to pick up Senatorial seats in 2008. At a minimum, of the 33 seats coming up for election, 21 are currently held by Republicans. Even if most of those seats are safe today - and I think they are - even a hawk like Lieberman must understand that if the war in Iraq is still going on in 2008, Republicans are going to be very unpopular indeed. And, of course, if Lieberman doesn't want the war to continue, there's not much reason for him to switch in the first place.

So it's not clear to me that it makes much political sense for Lieberman to actually make the jump. It's probably still helpful for him to make a fuss about the war and threaten to change parties, but it's got to be a bluff, right?

Update: Via Matthew Yglesias, apparently Lieberman becoming a Republican wouldn't change which party controls the Senate. If that's the case, then Lieberman's switching is all the more improbable.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy and the Iraq war

Via Atrios, Lieberman explains what we'll do if the mini-surge/escalation in Iraq doesn't work:

Yeah, well, you know, we will then look at the situation and decide what we can do, and the alternatives are limited here. The other alternatives–the main alternative that the opponents of what the President has done are offering is to simply begin to withdraw. And the theory there is that somehow if you with– I mean some people want to withdraw because they just want to get out. They think the thing–They want to give up. They think the thing is not winnable. I'm afraid they don't agree with me that the consequences of pulling out would be a disaster for everybody, including most important, us. But some say if you begin to withdraw, then Maliki and the other Iraqis will say 'Oh, my God, they're leaving. We got to get our act together. I don't think so. I think what is more likely is that the Iraqi politicians will begin to hedge their bets, and the militias and the Al Qaeda terrorists will just hold back until the day we're gone, and then chaos will break out, and unfortunately as McCain says, we'll probably be back there in a larger war, you know, two, three, four, five years from now. I think this is our chance, so I'd guess I'd say to you in war–There's a famous old saying that war is a series of catastrophes that ends up in victory for one side, and right now I'd say this plan is the best next step we've got. Let's hope it works, pray it works, and if it doesn't, then we'll figure out what we're gonna do then.

It's funny but - in stringing together a bunch of half-truths and misconceptions - Lieberman managed to be so wrong that he's right again. All the crappy things that will probably happen when we pull out of Iraq really aren't a consequence of pulling out. They're a consequence of the original invasion.

Leiberman employs the sunk-cost fallacy in order to take losses already incurred - losses to Iraqi stability, safety, and to American military readiness - and shift their responsibility from his poor decision to invade to the option which cuts our losses. This is classic "chasing" gambling behavior at it's best. So long as we don't leave the roulette table, we haven't really lost all our money. We always have the (slim) chance of winning it all back!

Given the instability Bush (aided by Lieberman) caused in Iraq the question is how best to fix it. If you think staying (or mini-escalating) will work then it makes sense to stay in Iraq. If on the other hand you don't think that'll work, than you should oppose keeping the troops in harms way for no reason. It's telling that many Iraq war supporters have given up on arguing that we can achieve victory and are reduced to arguing that we should keep soldiers in harms way to merely delay the bad consequences of their poor choices.

Bonus unrelated Ass-hattery quote!:

FRIEDMAN: Look, I understand people who opposed the war. Some opposed it for military reasons, because they’re against war, some opposed it because they hate George Bush, some opposed it because they didn’t believe Arabs are capable of democracy. I wasn’t in that group. I really believed that finding a different kind of politics in collaboration with people in that region was a really important project.

Bull Indeed

Of all the Lieberman-Lamont race commentary in existence, this might be the dumbest.

The Moose argues that there is only one real Democrat in the Connecticut Senate race.

...

Here is a thought experiment - who would Senators Truman, JFK, LBJ, HHH and Scoop be more comfortable with - Joe or his opponent? They would no doubt embrace Joe as one of them.

Lieberman, the real Democrat.

Who would any of those people endorse in this race? Presumably they would endorse the actual Democrat. But really, who cares?

Scoop Jackson supported Japanese internment during World War II. The Moose apparently thinks that Lamont ought to adopt a similar line toward Muslims in the U.S. today, so that when Bill & Ted bring Jackson to Connecticut in 2006, he'll be "more comfortable" with the idea of voting for Lamont.

Or something.

Ideological Purge Watch

At least through the end of August, Lieberman appeared to be doing pretty well for himself. As for whether there's some sort of conspiracy to force hawks out of the party - by, like, voting them out of office - the evidence is thin:

[Chuck Schumer] and others cited several reasons why Lamont's victory didn't herald a national movement to topple entrenched Democrats in the 13 primaries being contested this month. Most notably, the party has turned its attention to recapturing control of Congress in November, and that means emphasizing not just opposition to the Iraq war but a variety of other issues.


...

Anyone wanting to piggyback on Lamont's success has faced another hurdle: The Lamont-Lieberman race involved "a unique set of circumstances," as Washington political analyst Jennifer Duffy put it.

It would be difficult to replicate the combination of a wealthy challenger who eventually pumped about $4 million into his campaign; an incumbent senator whose war views and praise of White House policy were highly unpopular at home; the notion that Lieberman had announced his intention to run as an independent if he lost; and the fact that the race was run in a small state where individual voters are easier to reach.

Of course, Lamont's victory showed that Lieberman's position on the war mattered, but it was only one of many factors contributing to his loss.

Lamont vs. The Hawks -- The Hawks vs. Reality

The election of Lamont shows that Democrats are getting serious about security – rejecting leaders who have proven themselves deeply unserious about the broad security questions of our day. Democratic politicians were once afraid to battle Republicans on defense; even John Kerry’s ideas were mostly just Bush’s with added competence. But I think that paradigm has changed even if Democrats haven’t done a good job explaining it. The election of Lamont shows that Democrats have rejected the old ideas; hopefully, the 2006 election will be used to show that we have ideas of our own.

So what are we rejecting? As Chait would say this election serves to “intimidate other hawkish Democrats”. Unlike him I think that’s a good thing. I don’t belong to the school of thought which says that being a hawk – advocating aggressive policy on foreign relations – is equal to being strong on defense. It depends on the situation. Currently, the hawkish position is a weak one and that may be why Democrats are polling higher than Republicans on issues like Iraq and terrorism.

This article lays it out well. During the cold war hawks were probably the purveyors of the most dangerous, most destabilizing, least secure foreign policy in America. Nowadays the same is true though for different reasons. The cold-war hawks were unserious because they didn’t accept the limits imposed by the nuclear stalemate; the current hawks are unserious because they don’t appreciate the limits imposed by modern asymmetrical warfare. Though realities have decreased the usefulness of war, the hawks continue to indulge their emotional predisposition to to solve problems though war, insisting that they have a way to make it work.

Bush assumed he could solve the problem of Al Qaeda by invading Iraq (though to be fair he thought it would solve a whole lot of other problems as well). Rumsfeld assumed could escape the limits of asymmetrical modern warfare by waging blitzkrieg with a tiny ground force. When that didn’t work some hawks suggested putting the State department in charge (what they were supposed to do differently wasn’t even explained). Some are suggesting we “get tough” with Iran or Syria though as of now few of them are brave enough to come out and say what exactly they mean.

In all cases the underlying assumption is the same:

• The pre-war situation was intolerable
• A tolerable situation is achievable
• Therefore there must be some kind of war we can wage that will make the situation tolerable. It’s only a matter of figuring out what war that is. QED
  

In Israel, we see the same situation in miniature. Instead of accepting the Hammas attacks while encouraging and expanding the cedar revolution that could ultimately bring peace the Israeli hawks just assumed that somehow a war could fix everything. Now they’re discovering their folly but as sure as the sun does shine the hawks will come back with another fool-proof plan that’s sure to work.

I'll discuss the alternative - standard liberal internationalism - later.

Making Illinois Feel Better About Its Governor's Name

The biggest story of the Lieberman-Lamont battle? Connecticut's Secretary of State's lousy website. A fun game to play - Which takes longer: finding the election results, or figuring out how to pronounce "Bysiewicz"?

Update: Lamont wins and Lieberman will form a new party with the terrible name "Team Connecticut". Can't say I'm too worked up about his 3rd party run - there's clearly an ego problem, but it's not obvious to me that he doesn't really believe that he's the preferred choice of the voters of Connecticut. Bad for the Democratic party and most brands of liberalism, but it's hard to see why Lieberman can't just say that such problems aren't the unfortunate, but short-term, costs of democracy. We're talking more Ross Perot than Ralph Nader.

Interesting wrinkle - what will Harry Reid do?