I certainly want Lieberman to win, because a) I think he’s a great man and b) I fear for the country’s health if a politician as responsible as Lieberman is turned out by ideological schismatics who are dedicating themselves to a suicidal effort to purify their party. (I felt the same way, by the way, about the effort to defeat Arlen Specter in a primary, even though I have serious problems with Specter.)  ~John Podhoretz, The Corner

Via Ross Douthat

In other words, you can have political representation, provided you don’t care whether your views are actually represented.  As Stephen Colbert said to Connecticut Democrats about the Lieberman race: “You had your choice in 1988.”  Apparently in the world of Podhoretz, once you get past that first primary challenge and become a “responsible” (which, according to Podhoretz, seems to mean being either pro-war or a Republican incumbent) politician, you should only have to face off against similarly “responsible” candidates in the general election where the danger of different policies or dissent from the Washington consensus is severely reduced.  As for the Pennsylavnia case, there’s obviously no sense “risking the seat” for the sake of anything as crazy or outlandish as representative government.  Who do these people think is in charge around here anyway? 

Of course, Podhoretz typically only objects to purges when they are directed against people with whom he happens to agree, and would not normally have deep concern over whether the Democratic Party were bent on a supposedly suicidal course if the “great man” he admires were not in danger of losing his day job as a result.  Supporters of the GOP had better hope that an antiwar turn by the Democrats is the electoral equivalent of suicide, as Democratic suicide of this sort will probably be the only thing to save the Republican majority. 

In fact, what I am guessing Podhoretz finds terribly troubling is that the majority of people in one of the two parties is flexing its muscles and forcing the party leadership to follow its lead for once.  Just imagine the horror if the GOP were taken in a similarly “suicidal” direction when it came to immigration–Podhoretz would be among the first to complain.  This is not because these policies are guaranteed electoral losers (they may be just the opposite in both cases), but because they contradict the narrow consensus for immigration, imperialism and insolvency that seems to govern more or less the leadership of both parties.