To the editor:

It’s rather telling that most of the folks who have their shorts in a wad over Joe Lieberman’s Democratic primary loss in Connecticut are conservative commentators, members of the GOP and White House officials.

Cal Thomas even calls Ned Lamont voters “Taliban Democrats : willing to ‘kill’ one of their own (who) does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party’s kook fringe.”

It’s a democracy. Incumbents lose sometimes. Lieberman lost because although he was once a well-liked senator and was a worthy vice presidential candidate in 2000, his early and persistent support for Bush’s shortsighted foreign policy did not sit well with his constituents, many of whom are among the 60 percent of Americans (from all parties) now against the war. Hardly a “kook fringe.”

Thomas’ suggestion of anti-Semitism is absurd and insulting (wouldn’t that mean Lieberman wouldn’t have been voted into office in the first place?). And to call it the opposite of the Republican’s “big tent” party “with room for everybody” : yeah, sure. I’d still be laughing, but just thinking of the Bush events with sanitized questions, prescreened answers and loyalists-only attendance makes me sick to my stomach.

Why is Cal Thomas so angry? Unlike when some GOP incumbents are voted out of office, at least there are no indictments involved. I think Cal Thomas is part of a kook fringe. Why does the Journal-World bother running his columns?

Christy Kennedy,

Lawrence