Oh, the Netroots Won't Like This at All

But Wal-Mart isn't progressive! Wal-Mart is so regressive, it's...it's antigressive!

Connecticut millionaire businessman Ned Lamont, who sharply criticized the employment practices of Wal-Mart this week in his campaign to unseat Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democrat primary, owns stock in the company, Senate records reveal.

"This is about waking up Wal-Mart, and this is also about waking up corporate America," Mr. Lamont said Wednesday at a Bridgeport rally against the retail giant, hosted by many of the same liberal bloggers who have boosted the former cable executive far ahead of Mr. Lieberman in the polls.
But Mr. Lamont and his family are part owners of the company, according to financial disclosure records he filed earlier this year with the secretary of the Senate. Mr. Lamont, his wife and a dependent child own as much as $31,000 in Wal-Mart stock.

Mr. Lamont and his wife jointly own two accounts containing as much as $16,000 in Wal-Mart stock. Their Wal-Mart holdings spin off as much as $3,500 in annual dividends. In addition, a trust fund he set up for one of his children contains as much as $15,000 in Wal-Mart stock and spins off as much as $1,000 in dividends.

In his remarks at the anti-Wal-Mart rally this week, Mr. Lamont never mentioned his shareholder status in the company. He did, however, criticize Mr. Lieberman for not doing more during this three terms in the Senate to help the workers he says are so mistreated by Wal-Mart.

The anti-Wal-Mart position is just silly, economically. Successful businessman Lamont knows this, which is why he owns stock. Unfortunately for him, he turned a good investment into a political liability with some economically silly posturing.

Michelle points me to more nastiness from the online Lamont supporters. (WARNING: Adult content after the link)

TimesWatch is doing exactly what its name would suggest, and brings us a take on the NYT's coverage of the Lamont/Lieberman race, which includes several paragraphs on the blackface incident:

A caption to a photo of “Lieberman-in-blackface” blogger Jane Hamsher simply says “Blogs by Jane Hamsher send a pro-Lamont message in the Senate race,” and the first four paragraphs say nothing about the reason Hamsher has her picture in the Times today in the first place.

It takes the Times until after the jump to get to a mild rundown of the blackface controversy.

“But the results for Mr. Lamont have not always been what his campaign would have wanted. This week, the blogger who broke the news of Mr. Lieberman’s Halliburton stock posted a doctored image of the senator in blackface on The Huffington Post, stirring an outcry and prompting an embarrassed Lamont campaign to ask her to remove it. Lieberman supporters seized on the image, pointing out that the blogger, Jane Hamsher, has been closely involved in the Lamont campaign, even driving the campaign manager on Monday to New York for Mr. Lamont’s appearance on ‘The Colbert Report’ on Comedy Central.”

Good for the Times for working in the Hamsher-Lamont connection. But for the second day in a row in a story cowritten by Medina and liberal Nicholas Confessore, the Times lets Lamont deny the close connection between him and the offensive blogger, even though Hamsher has filmed video blog ads for Lamont. (See a picture of Hamsher and Lamont together at an entertaining entry at Ace of Spades.)