Stirling Newberry gets carried away on the Lamont-Lieberman debate

Lieberman, a child of the Reagan generation, with its easy arrogance of power, thinking that all that was needed to run the world was a certain sharpness, has failed to understand that whole eras of American government have been made, or broken, on the backs of a single throw of the dice. [Me: the backs of a throw?]

It was Jackson's easy little war against the Cherokee that opened up the rest of the deep south. It was Tyler's belated commitment to a war in Texas that opened up the chance for Polk to take the Presidency, and then Taylor to take it back for the Whigs. The run of victories created an easy arrogance of power around a southern officer class, which then proceded to commit to a "War between the States" even as prominent Republicans in the Union wanted an external war to unify the nation.

Of course the Iraq War could shift American politics. But all we have here so far is a primary challenge. Tone it down, hoss.