Junior wasn't all that? You don't say

Lemon
See through in the sunlight
-- "Lemon" (U2, Zooropa)

Update to Harold Ford Jr. (see "Junior campaigned in strange places" and "Meet the Donkaphant Harold Ford Jr.") It would have been nice to be able to "see through in the sunlight" Junior but independent media didn't want to. (Bruce Dixon, Glen Ford and Margaret Kimberley, now with The Black Agenda Report, weren't afraid to address the realities of Junior.)

Which is why it was Adam Nossiter and The New York Times, not independent media, that tackled Junior on November 21, 1006 (A20, "Political Memo: Is the South Truly a Dead Zone for Democrats?"). Nossiter informs readers that they need to hold on just a second, the conventional wisdom that Junior was defeated due to his race doesn't bear out to Democratic "Party officials in Tennessee."

No __?

Nossiter writes:

Voters knew that several members of the politically active Ford family had been caught up in legal and ethical problems, including Ford's father and predecessor in Congress, Harold Ford Sr., who was acquitted on federal corruption charges.

"The Ford name has a lot of baggage in West Tennessee," said Will T. Cheek, a member of the Democratic National Committee in Nashville.

That voters might have considered the Fords less than trustworthy could have been reinforced in the Senate race, in the view of some Tennessee Democrats, by the candidate's own late-breaking genuflections towards his faith, by his denunciations of same-sex marriage and by other signals of a swing to the right.

Or even by his voting record.

So why is it that independent media before the election ran a puff piece on Junior (who loves the Bully Boy and loves the illegal war -- thought the full weight of the magazine was going behind anti-war candidates) and the Friday after the election, on Democracy Now!, an "analyst" who wasn't couldn't seem to stop singing the praises of Junior?

Lot of cover was given to Junior. Lot of people looked the other way. 2006 was supposed to be the year that Dems absorbed the message (fully) that, given a choice between a Repube and a faux Repube, voters would vote for the genuine article? Running to the right of the Bully Boy hadn't worked out too well in 2004 and 2006. But here came the Juniors and we were all supposed to look the other way. One got elected, one didn't. Neither should have even been in the race on the Democratic ticket.

As some fret about Junior and "really hope" he gets a CNN job, we hope he does anything, but run for public office again. Ford Junior got pantsed, pulled over the lap and spanked till his legs were kicking and his eyes were running tears. Politics isn't for children and Dems need to learn to be Dems. Maybe he'll grasp that when he's done with his corner time?