Lieberman in Blackface

Another so-called "progressive" blogger has created yet another controversy that will keep the right-wing busy for days on end slamming left-wingers and, this time, it made it to TV screens in Connecticut.

On Wednesday, Jane Hamsher of the well-known American blog Firedoglake wrote a column about the Lieberman/Lamont race for The Huffington Post and included a picture of Lieberman in blackface. That picture was then scrubbed from HuffPo's site after a request by the Lamont campaign (but not before it was picked up by the Drudge Report and numerous other people) and Hamsher posted an apology on her site.

Just one question for Hamsher and those readers of hers that think this was all no big deal: what the hell were you thinking??

Hamsher herself slammed Laura Bush back in 2005 for invoking the name of comedian Eddie Cantor when she spoke about No Child Left Behind.

Does he First Lady not know who Eddie Cantor was? Or does she actually think it's appropriate to invoke a comedian famous for appearing in blackface when talking about minority students, and then crack wise about their erstwhile future as criminals?

So, Laura talking about a blackface comedian is not acceptable but posting a picture of Joe Lieberman in blackface to score political points is? Hypocrisy, anyone?

Oh, and congratulations Hamsher, your stunt made it to the pages of Thursday's Washington Post. I wonder how Lamont is feeling about the 'netroots' movement right about now.

Lieberman responded indignantly after the photo posting was revealed. "This is one of the most disgusting and hurtful images that has been used in American history, it's deeply offensive to people of all colors, and it has absolutely no place in the political arena today," he said in a statement issued by his campaign.

Lieberman called on Lamont to ban Hamsher from traveling with the campaign, refuse to take any money raised by Hamsher and remove any links to her postings on his Web site.

Lamont brushed past reporters Wednesday night in Bridgeport, saying: "I don't know anything about the blogs. I'm not responsible for those. I have no comment on them."
[...]
Arianna Huffington, the founder of HuffingtonPost.com, said that no one from the Web site has asked for the photo to be removed. "We did not ask her, nor would we have asked her," she said. "It was a satirical point she made in the picture, and there was nothing in the text that was racist, and there is nothing about Jane that is racist."