Entries for April 26, 2007

Hugh Hewitt urges Joe Lieberman to switch parties. This would be a tough thing for him to do and might cost him his seat in 2012. But he has already taken great political risks in the service of principle, and I think he is prepared to bow out of public office at age 70 if that is what the voters of Connecticut demand. He could still run as an independent. More important to him, it would snap his ties with the very many Connecticut and national Democrats he has worked with for many years. But many of those ties snapped when Lieberman lost the primary and the Democrats endorsed Lamont. I haven't noticed Lieberman running to endorse his colleague Chris Dodd's presidential candidacy.

David Halberstam died Monday in a car crash in California. Characteristically, he was there to research his latest book, still completely active at age 73. Halberstam was an excellent and controversial reporter and a very fine writer. I've read several of his books and some of his journalism, including articles he wrote for the New York Times in the early 1960s from Vietnam. His brother, Michael Halberstam, was my physician in Washington in the early 1970s; he was murdered by a burglar in 1980. He was a writer, too; his novel The Wanting of Levine was terrific and very funny. It's sad to reflect that both brothers died violently and were taken away from us far too soon, when they had much more good work to do.