A letter today in the News-Times (Danbury):

I commend Newtown First Selectman Herb Rosenthal and the Democratic Town Committee for politely, but firmly, insisting that U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman participate in the Newtown Labor Day parade as what he is: the candidate who decisively lost the Connecticut Democratic primary in an historically high turnout of voters.

This is not merely a matter of protocol. Connecticut taxpayers paid for a statewide primary election.

Senator Lieberman's opponent, businessman Ned Lamont, pledged to endorse the winner.

In one of the most graceless displays of any recent political campaign, Senator Lieberman not only refused to back the winner, but following his defeat, decreed that he will not allow the primary voters' choice "to stand."

Worse yet, Senator Lieberman, who engaged in exactly the same type of opportunistic gamesmanship by simultaneously running for vice president and his Senate seat in 2000, claims his decision to ignore the results of an election in which he chose to run is a matter of principle and a "higher calling."

Mr. Rosenthal and Newtown's Democrats have done the right thing; telling Senator Lieberman that in demanding an election do-over, the only "calling" he is following is the preservation of his own career.

David Atkins
SANDY HOOK

As I wrote on primary night, Lieberman really has a hard time accepting losing (at least to Democrats). Compare his "graceless" performance on primary night this August to his similar performance on primary night in New Hampshire in January 2004, when he tried to paint a 5th-place finish in single digits in a state he had been literally living in for weeks as some sort of "victory":

Thank you. Let me ask you this: is New Hampshire a great state or what? You bet it is.

Based on the returns that we've seen tonight, thanks to the people of New Hampshire, we are in a three way split decision for third place.

Now you and I both know that the national pundits didn't expect this, did they? As a matter of fact this morning, the national newspapers put four of the candidates on their front page -- but not me.

But today, the people of New Hampshire put me in the ring, and that's where we're going to stay.

Today New Hampshire's next-door neighbor candidates, John Kerry and Howard Dean, received most of the vote, but the rest was split, with no clear decision reached. And let me put it to you this way: for us, this is more than a campaign, isn't it? It is a cause, and we're ready to take that cause now to the rest of America.