>The New York Times really wants Dean to win
Evidently you missed today's front-page profile of Lieberman, a love letter written by the incomparable Janny Scott (an actual instance of someone being named after a brokerage firm, Janney Montgomery Scott):
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/politics/campaigns/08LIEB.html>
>A Centrist, Lieberman Fights for Votes in an Extremist Era
>By JANNY SCOTT
>
>It is a quiet Sunday morning in early fall on Franklin Street in
>Concord, N.H., and Joe Lieberman is being his indefatigably genial
>self, campaigning door to door - listening intently to voters,
>nodding thoughtfully while a herd of flowerbed-trampling reporters
>and factotums snorts and stamps on his tail.
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>
>Out beyond the curb, a handmade sign bobs above the heads of the
>onlookers. It is a sheet of white poster board studded with images
>of bloodied children. The couple carrying it have abandoned their
>morning coffee to let Mr. Lieberman know how they feel about his
>enthusiastic support for the war in Iraq.
>
>Undaunted, he wades across the sidewalk to meet them. They confront
>him, he listens; he starts to respond, they remonstrate some more.
>Two doors up, another Iraq question awaits him, this time from a
>woman with her son in tow. Again, Mr. Lieberman takes time to make
>his case.
>
>He supported the war, he tells her undefensively; he believes it was
>the right thing to do. The world is safer, he says, with Saddam
>Hussein removed from power. But he is stunned by the Bush
>administration's mishandling of the aftermath, he says. It should
>have reached out immediately for international help.
>
>He thanks the woman for her question; he invites her to a town hall
>meeting that night; he suggests she visit his campaign Web site.
>Starting up the sidewalk with his wife, Hadassah, he turns back to
>the questioner one more time, as though loath to give up on the
>possibility of winning her over.
>
>"Probably you and I agree on most things," he suggests.
>
>The woman nods. But her expression is opaque.
>
>Senator Joseph I. Lieberman has built his career doing what he did
>that morning: wading across ideological divides, hunting for common
>ground and doing it with a mix of civility and conviction that at
>its best has won over Democrats, Republicans and independents alike.
But met with opacity. Etc.
Doug