Where the center is

"Lieberman Finds Middle a Tricky Path."

That's the headline on this New York Times article about Joe Lieberman.

I'm constantly amazed by the warped perception of where the "middle" is in American politics.

Joe Lieberman is not "in the center" of American politics. He has some socially moderate positions, but on his signature issue, the war and international affairs, Lieberman is about as far to the right as you can get.

He's not having trouble with the Democratic party because he's trying to walk "the middle." He's having trouble with them because 1) he's taken an extremist position that's far out of step with what most Democrats believe, and 2) he's backing the Republican candidate for president and routinely calls the Democratic nominee an extremist surrender monkey.

But as far as the media is concerned, a "centrist" is a Democrat who adopts extreme right wing positions on matters of war (Lieberman, though I'd hardly call him a Democrat anymore), or a Republican who has at least one position on something--it can be anything--that's different from George Bush's. Thus, Rudy Giuliani was allowed to be as extreme as he could possibly get on issues of war and "security," and still be called a "moderate." John McCain is regularly called a "centrist" despite the fact that, on nearly every issue, he's extremely far right--he's harshly pro-life, against both gay marriage and gay adoption, in favor (now) of more and deeper tax cuts for rich people, wants to stay in Iraq forever and mix it up with Iran and probably Syria, etc.

But, since he used to be for campaign finance reform (and also used to have non-doctrinaire positions on immigration and taxes that he's completely reversed himself on now), he's apparently a "moderate."

I suppose it goes without saying that I don't think the media, as a whole, could find the actual center of American political thought with both hands and a flashlight.