Sen. Chuck Hagel recently said he wasn't ready to endorse John McCain. That makes him the Republican Joe Lieberman, except in one respect. There has been no hysterical outcry from his party. Republicans haven't declared Hagel a traitor or a Judas. (Admittedly, that might change if he and Obama were to kiss.) They haven't treated him like Stalin did Trostky, which is to say, marginally better than Democrats have acted toward Joe Lieberman.

That the Obama campaign has taken deliberate aim at Lieberman, ludicrously suggesting Lieberman is somehow complicit in rumors that Obama is Muslim, reveals the outright vitriol with which the left greets any dissent in its own ranks. For the record, I have not received a single communiqué from the RNC or McCain campaign trashing Hagel. That's because none have been sent. Despite all the blame heaped on President Bush for making Washington, D.C. so highly polarized, Hagel/Lieberman underscores the place the left now occupies in this culture.