Axis of Assholes: Joe Lieberman (Part II)

Bipartisanship and loyalty:
Senator Joe Lieberman likes to position himself as being bipartisan while lecturing others on their lack of same. Oddly enough his words seem directed more at Democrats and rarely if ever at Republicans. So when the Bush White House and its minions broke the law by outing covert CIA operative Valerie Plame as an act of political retribution because her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson challenged their phony uranium cake charges in Niger, Lieberman was silent. When the tough-talking drug abuser Viagra Boy Rush (I got out of the VietNam war draft because I had a pimple on my ass) Limbaugh slurs Iraqi war veterans who oppose the war as "phony soldiers", Lieberman was silent. When a Mitch McConnell senate staffer starts a campaign to swift boat 12-year old Graeme Frost over his words supporting the S-Chip bill by sending an email full of lies and misrepresentations causing the family to get death threats from the lunatic right wing fringe, Lieberman was again silent.

But god forbid Moveon.org run an ad fairly questioning the motives of General David Petraeus (see an earlier blog on this subject) Lieberman is quick to condemn. MoveOn.org's full-page advertisement was slammed by Lieberman, who called the allegation 'an outrageous and despicable act of slander that every member of the Congress -- Democrat and Republican -- has a solemn responsibility to condemn.'"

Perhaps even more outrageous was his response to the Mark Foley affair. Foley was the congressman who was exposed as a child sexual predator, having Internet sex with underage pages between House votes. A fellow Republican congressman exposed evidence that the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was informed of the sexual predator's behavior, and did nothing about it for months or even years. Hastert did not deny the evidence. Yet, when lawmakers called for the Speaker to resign, what did Joe Lieberman do? He focussed his major attacks not on the sexual predator, not on the Speaker who covered up the scandal - but instead, he attacked critics of the Speaker.

One Connecticut blogger followed Lieberman's campaign, noting that the scandal, in which he reiterated his earlier attacks on Ned Lamont and others for calling for Hastert's immediate resignation in the wake of the sexual predator scandal: "Right now I'd say this thing is spinning out of control, it's become another partisan frenzy in Washington, that's the wrong way to go at it."

"...So Joe Lieberman's major reaction to this awful, disgusting and horrific scandal is to berate as "partisan" those who want just a smidgeon of accountability? Of course, he never explains how it can be "partisan" when many of the loudest calls for Hastert's immediate resignation are from conservatives. But even beyond the dishonesty is the sheer shamelessness of it all. These pious declarations are coming from the same man who used the consensual affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to build his own name recognition by parading himself all over the Washington talk show circuit as Mr. Moral."

So Lieberman's empty words on bipartisanship are just another example of a politician preening; in effect its another case of do as I say not as I do. Like the not-so-straight talking express McCain, the media portrays Lieberman as a maverick, a moderate Democrat looking for common ground. But Lieberman is hardly a moderate. He’s objectively for himself while pretending to represent the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. He provides “centrist Democratic” cover for all sorts of GOP hobby horses. There are some real centrists–Joe Biden, Mark Warner, Chris Dodd, Evan Bayh–but all of them understand that at the end of the day, they’re Democrats. They understand that in a pinch, their loyalty lies more with Dick Durbin or Nancy Pelosi than George Bush or the ethically-challenged Mitch McConnell, the Senator who denied in a TV interview that his staff sent the email that started the Graeme Frost swift boating disaster. Oh yeah an aside here: sorry Senator but you are one bold-faced liar. We know that emails are traceable, we know that they came from your office and from the time line of events we know that you knew about it when you denied it on TV.

Strange bedfellows: His evangelical friends.
Joe Lieberman is a devout Orthodox Jew. From the moment he was elected to office and especially when he joined Al Gore on the 2000 national ticket, there were some fears that Lieberman's faith would affect perceptions on both sides of the Middle East peace process. Some have even intimated that Lieberman's primary loyalty is to Israel, not the US. Personally I have no such problem and I could care less, as long as he can separate his political points of view from his religious ones. The problem is, he can't.

Lieberman has made some strange friends and bedfellows in his political career. One of the strangest and most frightening is the evangelical minister and crackpot John Hagee and the group he leads, Christians United for Israel. The name of the group tells you all you need to know about why Hagee and politically opportunistic Joe Lieberman are friends and the extremes that Lieberman will embrace to defend his so-called "moderate" political point of view.

Hagee, is a little odd to say the least. For a non-religious but spiritual person like myself, Hagee represents everything I despise in organized religion. He's a bit crazed: Hagee believes that "Rapture" -- whereby all Christians literally disappear from earth upon the return of Christ, leaving all non-believers to suffer on Earth -- is "imminent." He believes that before Christ returns, the Bible contains prophecies of a series of Middle East wars against Muslims. And he also believes that God has placed an absolute bar on the giving away of any Israeli land whatsoever, and thus categorically condemns plans such as the "road map" and the Gaza withdrawal as blasphemies against God.

And this, from Hagee himself: "For those of you in Washington, Jerusalem is not up for negotiation at any time, for any reason, in the future, no matter what your road map calls for. There are still people in this nation who believes the Bible takes precedence over Washington, DC."

Which brings us to his good friend and fellow Israel supporter Joe Lieberman who spoke to this band of crazies at the Christians United For Israel in June of 2007, where he praised Hagee with this: "Pastor Hagee, I pray that God will bless you with all that you pray for, and I do so with great confidence because I know what the Lord said to Abraham in Genesis 12:3. If ever there was a man who will be blessed because he has blessed Israel, Pastor Hagee, it is you."

"I believe that Israel's rebirth in 1948 was divinely inspired by God, but I know that it was realized by the men and women here on earth who worked so hard to make it happen. Israel will be sustained by the work of men and women like you here on Earth. And I know you know how truly American is your support of Israel. . .

"If we surrender to the barbarism of suicide bombers and yield the Middle East to fanatics and killers, to Al Qaeda and Iran, then all that our men and women in uniform have fought, and died for, will be lost, we will be left a much less secure and free nation, and our Middle East allies -- including Israel -- will be endangered.

"Fortunately, you here tonight know that evil will not prevail if good people act. And I know you will not allow Iran and Al Qaeda to triumph over America and Israel.

So who is this man that Lieberman holds in such high regard? And what else does he believe? Here's a nugget to consider: Hagee believes Katrina is punishment from God for a society that is becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. "All hurricanes are acts of God," he said, " because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

Later, "So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."

Amen. Praise the lord, pass the collection plate and thank Joe Lieberman for sucking up to another evangelical asshole.

Privacy:
The self described moderate independent Joe Lieberman doesn't like privacy. He likes the CCTV program in the United Kingdom where every day life is monitored. Here in the US, Joe Lieberman wants surveillance cameras to keep an eye on you: On ABC’s This Week recently, Lieberman said he wants the federal government to "more widely" use surveillance cameras to spy on people across America. He also turns a blind eye to illegal wiretapping: Recently bringing up the threat that London’s terror attacks could come over to America, he called attempts by congress to investigate the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping program “partisan gridlock” that was leaving us vulnerable to attack.

Lieberman used the foiled terror attempts in London to call for greater domestic spying in the United States. “I hope these terrorist attacks in London wake us up here in America to stop the petty partisan fighting going on about…electronic surveillance,” Lieberman said, referencing the Senate Judiciary Committee’s recent subpoenas of documents related to Bush’s wiretapping program that the White House has refused to release.

Not surprisingly, a few days later on Fox and Friends, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff echoed Lieberman’s call, arguing that Lieberman was “dead right” in calling for increased domestic surveillance. Once again Lieberman carries water for the Bushies.

Lieberman Punts on Katrina:
During his 2006 general election campaign, Lieberman criticized Bush's handling of Katrina, and had complained about the administration's failure to turn over related documents. This was part of his master plan to show separation for Bush, the man who embraced him at the 2006 State of the Union address. Now that the campaign is over, oops, never mind...

On reporter noted that Lieberman "has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans."

But this wasn't the only time Lieberman had abandoned a pledge to look into the Katrina disaster.

In the aftermath of Katrina, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the chairwoman and Joe Lieberman, the ranking minority member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a joint press conference and said hearings would be held. "Government at all levels failed," said Collins, Republican and chairwoman of the panel, who appeared with the ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman...

As quoted in the NY Times (9/6/05), Lieberman said, "In some sense, not just the Gulf Coast was attacked but America's self-confidence in the aftermath of the way government responded to this crisis. And this is no time for politics."

Of course he wanted to avoid politics because he was in full cover his ass mode. Here's what Lieberman during the 2002 confirmation hearings for Michael Brown's appointment to head FEMA:

"I am glad the President has nominated someone already familiar with FEMA's mission to become Deputy Director.

"I will certainly support your nomination. I will do my best to move it through the Committee as soon as possible so we can have you fully and legally at work in your new position."

The only thing he didn't say was "Doin' a heckuva job Brownie!"

The Terry Schiavo case:
Ok, one fully expects morally reprehensible and intellectual light weights like George Bush, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum and others to weigh in on the wrong side of the Terry Schiavo case. They're morons. And how can any of us forget the absurd asswipe Dr. Bill Frist diagnosing Terry Schiavo from videotape footage. But it is quite another for someone like Joe Lieberman to pontificate on family values and personal privacy while stomping all over them trying to score political points. And he did offer support for legislation allowing federal courts to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case.

While running for reelection in 2006 as an independent, Lieberman tried to forget all of this, saying, "It's time for politicians to let Terri Schiavo rest in peace." Too bad he didn't have the decency to say that when Michael Schiavo was battling the courts and the evangelicals to do what he thought best for his wife, Terry Schiavo. Holy Joe Lieberman jumped on their bandwagon and proceeded to bludgeon Michael Schiavo and his supporters with all sorts of rhetoric. In the midst of the Schiavo case sturm un drang, Lieberman went on "Meet The Press" moderated by the perpetually ill-informed Tim Russert to say politicians should get involved in her case.

But on the campaign trail, it was a different story. Lieberman nuanced his speech carefully because he was running for his political life and his position was hopelessly out of step with what the American public thought. So he offered a revised history and hoped no one would notice. Apparently the media didn't--no surprise there-- but the voters did.

As did Michael Schiavo. He went to Connecticut and campaigned for Lieberman opponent Ned Lamont.

Hollywood, Video games and popular culture:
Joe Lieberman opposes violent movies, video games and pornography. Big whup. I don't care much for them myself. But I'm not a politician and I don't go around lecturing others on on what is or isn't suitable for children. Lieberman is one of those politicians who likes to raise his profile by blaming all kinds of horrendous crimes on violent video games or pointing the finger at pornographers.

Oh yeah, except he’s funded in part by purveyors of porn. Despite his socially conservative views and opposition to sex in video games, Lieberman has accepted thousands in campaign contributions from corporations like Marriott that profit from the sale of pornography in their hotels.

We do not forget that Lieberman teamed with the sanctimonious serial gambler (that's not a vice is it?) William Bennett, a former Bush secretary of Education, to bash Hollywood, giving out the "Silver Sewer" award to Tinseltown's worst, slamming gangsta-rappers and others on the "wrong" side of the cultural crusade. But when he ran with Al Gore in 2000, Lieberman went to Hollywood with his hand out. So while busies himself lecturing us on morality, he or his minions are not above being hypocrites while collecting checks from the providers of morally questionable entertainment.

Thanks to Roberto Gonzalez and the San Jose Mercury News, we are reminded that Lieberman also teamed up with the crusty and despicable Lynne Cheney, wife of the mad hunter, in 1995 to set up the private American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which in 2000 gave $3.4 million to colleges and universities. While its various boards and advisory committees include elites from a diverse array of backgrounds, it is populated with a number of the usual neocon-aligned suspects, like Irving Kristol, New Republic's Martin Peretz, William Bennett, among others. According to its mission statement, ACTA “is the only national organization that is dedicated to working with alumni, donors, trustees, and education leaders across the country to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives a philosophically balanced, open-minded, high-quality education at an affordable price.”

But some have questioned the group's support for “the free exchange of ideas.” In October 2001, for example, ACTA issued a report assailing the response of U.S. universities to the 9/11 attacks, which reportedly attacked dozens of college professors and students for their supposedly less-than-patriotic reactions to the terrorist attacks. Several months later in February 2002, ACTA issued a “revised and expanded” edition, which included “a sampler of the many responses” to the original report. The revised edition, authored by ACTA staff, oddly claims that “no public official—including Lynne Cheney and Sen. Joe Lieberman—has endorsed or been asked to endorse this report.”

As Gonzalez wrote in the SJMN, the report became something of a blacklist. The revised report was a compendium of some 100 statements recorded by ACTA that reveal what it calls “moral equivocation” and outright hostility toward the United States among academic elites. While the original version cited the names of particular professors, leading to charges that the report resembled a blacklist, the revised edition suppressed the names “to focus discussion on the content of the views expressed, rather than the individuals who expressed them.” Also excised in the new edition were a number of scathing judgments from the original that were cited in press reports, such as the charge that “colleges and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response” to the attacks, and “when a nation's intellectuals are unwilling to defend its civilization, they give comfort to its adversaries.”

Lieberman punts on reproductive rights:
Joe Lieberman prides himself on being pro-choice, a strong supporter of women's rights and has the endorsement of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

But in 1991, he voted in favor of parental notification and against the use of federal funds for abortion except in cases when the life of the mother is in danger. And it didn't help when Lieberman said Catholic hospitals should not be required to offer emergency contraception to rape victims because they can easily go to another hospital.

And as blogger Jane Hamsher reminds us, Lieberman supports Anti-Choice License Plates For Connecticut. As Hamsher wrote, one of the favored ways in which the relentless and well-funded anti-choice machine is making its way into government is the "choose life" license plate scam. Part of the funds from selling the plates go to the state, but a portion also goes to support "pregnancy centers that do not offer abortion as an alternative."

"The battle seems headed for the Supreme Court, particularly since states like Tennessee — which allow sales of the plates — won’t allow pro-choice groups the same options. You expect this kind of stuff in a place like Tennessee, but when these anti-choice groups start trying to make a beach head in blue states like Connecticut using the same tactics it’s quite a different matter.

"So what happened when the Connecticut state DMV said they were reviewing the right of an out-of-state group to sell such license plates in Connecticut? The group’s president, Elizabeth Rex of Yonkers, New York, produced her letters of support, including one from…wait for it…Joe Lieberman."

The disingenuous 2006 Lieberman Campaign:
Lieberman has long had vocal critics in his home state, where the Connecticut media sees a man who seems to want everything both ways. The critics also note that Lieberman seems almost completely unaware of Connecticut local politics so Lieberman's problems in his reelection campaign ran deeper than the single issue of Iraq, though that issue was the single most important one for Democrats who nominated Ned Lamont in lieu of Joe Lieberman.

Perhaps in an effort to assuage discontent among voters, Lieberman ran for reelection as an independent, trying to stress his difference with the Bushies. Sean Smith, Lieberman's campaign manager, told blogger Ari Melber: “Our main message is that Senator Lieberman understands the anger and frustrations and the concerns about the way things are going. The Republican president and Congress have the country headed in the wrong direction, and Senator Lieberman is as angry and as frustrated as Connecticut voters are. The premise of our campaign is let's not just protest, let's not just be angry—let's channel that into positive results.” The comments prompted Melber to ask: “[What] exactly is Lieberman so angry about? He looks content discussing his hawkish views on TV. He is comfortable cutting deals with the Bush administration … In fact, it is hard to recall the last time Lieberman gave an ‘angry' speech denouncing President Bush and backed it up with action in Congress.

And as many observers have noted, the righteous fury that Lieberman publicly unleashed on President Clinton for his affair has never been deployed against any of President Bush's scandals. Not Katrina. Not Abu Ghraib. Not Plame. Not Abramoff. Not smearing veterans like John Murtha and John Kerry. And definitely not WMDs. If this is the angry Joe Lieberman, Connecticut cannot afford for him to ever calm down”

In the months leading up to the general election, Lieberman distanced himself from his earlier rhetoric on Iraq, repeatedly emphasizing his intent to end the war and bring U.S. forces home:
• In his first television ad following the August primary, Lieberman stated that he was staying in the race "because I want to help end the war in Iraq."
• An October 11 press release from his campaign described the argument that Lieberman is "continuing to back President Bush's stay the course policy" in Iraq as "an out and out lie." (This despite the fact that he has repeatedly stated the need to "stay the course" in Iraq, as Media Matters for America noted.)
• In an October 16 debate, Lieberman claimed, "No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do."
• In a November 3 press conference, Lieberman stated, "None of us wants more war; certainly not me. ... I want to bring our troops home."

The first commercial of Lieberman's re-election campaign cast him as a fighter of "big-oil Republicans." The campaign began airing a radio commercial addressed to environmentalists, an important voting bloc in a Democratic primary. Patty Pendergast, an environmentalist, talks in the commercial about Lieberman's opposition to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"The Republicans, all they want to do is drill oil and they don't see the ecosystem consequences," Pendergast said. "Joe Lieberman had no problem standing up to the big-oil Republicans. He was the leader on the arctic refuge."

But Joe Lieberman voted for George Bush's energy bill, which provided huge tax cuts to the same oil companies now reaping obscene billions in profits on the backs of consumers. And Joe Lieberman's ninth largest campaign contributor this cycle is an energy company that California's attorney general has called "Enron's twin brother" and is being sued for $2 billion for ripping off California's consumers.

Some other misrepresentations are found in a press release issued by the Lieberman campaign, ironically titled HERE ARE THE FACTS ON JOE LIEBERMAN:

• Joe Lieberman has been a scathing critic of the Bush Administration.
• Joe Lieberman is the only person in the United States of America who ran against George W. Bush twice, and beat him once.
• Lieberman criticized the Bush administration before the war started and after it began.
• Lieberman harshly criticized the Bush Administration for being unprepared for the post war situation in Iraq.
• Joe Lieberman Opposes Bush’s Attempts to Pack the Court with Right-Wing Ideologues, including Miguel Estrada and Dennis Shedd.
• Joe Lieberman OPPOSED the Nomination of Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court.

I'll leave it to the reader to decide if these are completely accurate representations of his actual record.

One more discomforting tidbit: the man who pretends to have moral authority is also the same Joe Lieberman who distributed race baiting anti-Lamont flyers in Connecticut's black church parking lots, who started a whisper campaign that Lamont was anti-semitic, who sent his paid thugs to disrupt Lamont campaign events and intimidate Lamont supporters, who told one lie after another about his record and his positions, almost pretending to be against the Iraq war by focusing his campaign on how he was going to end it. Of course after the election, he went back on this.

Ariana Huffington and others noted that Lieberman's last campaign was waged with the support of Republicans, not Democrats, because his tactics included "attacking the Democratic Party and using Rovian slurs of the worst kind. That's why he's getting such strong Republican support..."

Mr. Bipartisan may have had little Democratic support but he sure earned a lot from Republicans. Susan Collins of Maine spoke glowingly of him. John McCain allowed two of his aides to consult with the Lieberman camp. Newt Gingrich endorsed his run. He had the support from a spin-off of the infamous Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. The newly-formed Vets For Freedom is, according to the New York Times, an "independent group" that has "ties to top Republican leaders." And the group is receiving advice from Taylor Gross, a former White House official; Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard; and the Republican strategist Dan Senor.

We can't forget Tom DeLay was a fan. The often despised former House majority leader from Texas is a Republican who may not agree with the Bush White House's favorite Democrat on every issue but who thinks the Senator is right-on when it comes to foreign policy. "[Lieberman's] very good on the war," DeLay said during an interview this week on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" program.

And god forbid, crazy anti-semite Ann Coulter has defended Lieberman, as well, going on at some length during an interview with Fox's Neal Cavuto to explain how much she admires the senator and suggesting that, instead of fighting for the Democratic nomination in Connecticut, Lieberman ought to switch parties. "I think he should come all the way and become a Republican," argues Coulter, who says of Lieberman and the GOP: "at least he'd fit in with the party."

Even President Bush chose to support him deciding not to outwardly support Connecticut's Republican candidate. So Lieberman the "Independent" really has tremendous ties to top Republican leaders.

And Lieberman has repaid that support. Apart from Iraq, Lieberman has sided again and again with the Republican majority in the Senate: He voted for the confirmations of Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice and Michael Chertoff; he voted for the Republicans' class-action reform bill; he has flirted with Senate Republicans on Social Security reform; and while he ultimately voted against the bankruptcy reform bill, he voted for cloture on the bill, helping deny Democrats their last best chance to stop it. He has supported all of Bush's budgets for Iraq as well as voting for cloture (cutting off debate) on the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito while pretending to be against them.

Finally, Lieberman's victory allowed Republican's to try to spin the 2006 election results. Despite the shift in Lieberman's rhetoric on the war -- and the fact that exit polls in Connecticut found that 63 percent of voters support some form of withdrawal from Iraq -- prominent Republicans cast his victory as evidence that the war had not been a particularly significant factor in voters' decisions at the ballot box. For instance, during a November 8 press conference, McCain said: "If it had just been Iraq, Joe Lieberman would have never been re-elected in Connecticut, a liberal state, where he supported the president on the war." A November 12 Washington Post article quoted Rove as saying, "[I]f Iraq is the determining factor and it is a dominant opinion, then in a blue state like Connecticut you should not have 60 percent of the voters vote for one of the candidates who said, 'Stay, fight and win.' " Not surprisingly, even Anne Coulter echoed this analysis.

“His (Lieberman's) message is basically ‘Republican good, Democrat bad,'” says Keith Crane, a member of the Bramford, Connecticut, town Democratic Committee.

Joe Lieberman ran a disingenuous re-election campaign. Much to their discredit, the citizens of Connecticut fell for it. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Lieberman is a conservative (and more of a Republican than an Independent):
Joe Lieberman is no friend to moderate middle-of-the-road Americans. He sucks up to this Administration and its supporters in the media. He has been a favorite of Fox News, since he has been so willing to go on the conservative channel and play the role of someone in the “opposition” party who bashes his fellow democrats. He has waged a surreptious war against the Democratic Party, by selectively lecturing Democrats on Iraq, on bi-partisanship, and so on. He parrots many right-wing talking points that some Republicans would be ashamed to utter and he has accepted the aid and support of Republicans who are running the country into the ground.

His closer relationship with the Bush is closer than most think. In December 2004 the White House "sounded him out" for the job of U.N. ambassador, says a source close to Lieberman, and although he declined the offer, he remains in regular contact with the Executive Branch. Before Bush's State of the Union speech in January, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley brought in Lieberman for a private consultation with the President. Lieberman says he talks with or e-mails Hadley, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and White House legislative-affairs head Candida Wolff every week or two.

More telling, Lieberman has frequently aligned himself with some of the more notorious advocates of hard line U.S. policies. In 2002, Lieberman became an honorary co-chair, along with George Shultz and Sen. John McCain, of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an advocacy outfit spearheaded by a number of neo-con stalwarts, including Jeane Kirkpatrick, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Eliot A. Cohen.

Lieberman has a long history of joining forces with Republicans to support hawkish and interventionist defense policies. Throughout the 1990s, he supported Republican-led initiatives to ramp up efforts to build a missile defense system, becoming one of only a handful of Democrats to vote in 1995 against cutting spending for space-based missile defense programs. In 1998, he co-sponsored with McCain the Iraq Liberation Act, which made the overthrow of Saddam Hussein official U.S. policy (New York Times, December 10, 2005).

Lieberman serves as a “distinguished adviser” to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a supposedly nonpartisan think tank, formed shortly after 9/11 by “a group of visionary philanthropists and policymakers to engage in the worldwide war of ideas and to support the defense of democratic societies under assault by terrorism and militant Islamism.” Though visionaries include a who's who of neoconservatives, several of whom teamed up with Lieberman to support the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, including Perle, Kristol, Woolsey, and Kirkpatrick. Other prominent neoconservatives involved include Frank Gaffney, Charles Krauthammer, Gary Bauer, Newt Gingrich, Steve Forbes, and Jack Kemp.

Sensing a trend here? In 2004, Lieberman teamed up with the usual suspects to revive the Cold War-era anti-communist group, the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), which Lieberman co-chairs with Woolsey, Kyl, and Shultz. Among the familiar names on the CPD's list of members are Gaffney, Cohen, Forbes, Gingrich, Kemp, and Kirkpatrick. At the June 2004 press conference announcing the rebirth of the CPD, Lieberman claimed the aim of the group was “to form a bipartisan citizens' army, which is ready to fight a war of ideas against our Islamist terrorist enemies, and to send a clear signal that their strategy to deceive, demoralize, and divide America will not succeed.”

After the 2006 election, Lieberman made yet another strange political decision. He announced that his new spokesman would be Marshall Wittmann, a former colleague at the Democratic Leadership Council, and whom the New York Times calls “one of the great ideological contortionists” (11/22/06). An idiosyncratic ideologue who has been associated with a bewildering array of political factions—including the Trotskyites, the neo-cons, the Christian Coalition, and various Republican politicians—Wittmann has long promoted efforts to push hard line policies in the Democratic Party as a senior fellow of the Progressive Policy Institute and the DLC.

Perhaps with Wittmann's colorful and diverse political background. Lieberman thinks he has all his bases covered. Or then again, maybe in Wittman, Lieberman has found someone as politically unstable or opportunistic as he is.

The Caucus Game:
Democratic voters in Connecticut abandoned him in last year’s primary, favoring the antiwar candidate Ned Lamont. Lieberman ran as an independent, and beat the ineffectual Lamont in the general election in large part because Republicans voted for him. In the campaign, Lieberman said that he would join the Democratic caucus if elected, and his victory was the deciding one that gave the Democrats control of the Senate. But he told reporters recently that his attachment to the Party is based in some measure on sentiment, and should not necessarily be thought of as eternal.

A few days after the 2006 election, Lieberman appeared on Meet The Press. Lieberman left open the vague possibility that he may one day switch parties to the GOP. Regarding the prospect, he said, "I'm not ruling it out but I hope I don't get to that point."

In his 18 years in the U.S. Senate, Lieberman has cultivated an image of himself as a lonely, rare Washington official who places principle above politics. But with the Democrats' tenuous hold on power often dependent on his vote and with Republicans courting him to tilt the balance in their favor, Lieberman has been indulging in some fairly immodest political footsie. Early in 2007 he terrified fellow Democrats by skipping several of the weekly caucus lunches that cement party fidelity in the Senate. He was also spotted in the Republican cloakroom talking with South Carolina's Lindsey Graham about reforming Social Security. He even says he might vote Republican for President in 2008, a not-so-veiled hint that he would prefer John McCain, his fellow true believer in the Iraq war, to most, perhaps all, Democratic alternatives.

Meanwhile, the DailyKos notes that Lieberman will "caucus with whoever can offer him the best deal." According to the Associated Press, an recent internal memo from a senior Lieberman aide to top staffers read, "We should discuss his schedule when he's in DC and whether it makes sense to go to Caucus events, etc. or not."

Kos writes, "Party leaders who try to play nice with him are being played for suckers. Lieberman already turned back on promises to stick with the Democratic Party in return for their support in the primary, and there's nothing he could say that he wouldn't toss by the wayside if it wasn't in his interest."

Joe Lieberman’s loyalty lies with Joe Lieberman, and he long ago learned that the beltway media swoons for a “maverick” Democrat who is, whenever it matters, a “Republican.”

And now he's talking of supporting a Republican for president because - what? - we haven't had enough Republican control of our country the past six years?

Delusional.

Or as one blogger put it, "First time I’ve heard that a rat jumped on to a sinking ship…"

His 15 minutes are over?
Lieberman is a deeply religious man who takes his faith seriously, but there are times when he seems to wander across the line that separates piety from sanctimony.

Holier-than-thou Joe Lieberman is one of those rare breeds among our elected officials who come to think of themselves as part of the ruling class; entitled through some sort of self perceived superiority to continue in office.

The Connecticut voters allowed it. But when the politicians behavior gets to be so smug and self-righteous, we collectively bitch slap them at the ballot box. That's what happened to Lieberman in the primary.

Apparently Lieberman's reputation of being an annoying, moralistic scold, a moralistic jackass rubbed Democratic voters the wrong way. So they voted him out only to have the Republicans and a few idiots on the Democratic side sweep him back into office. He's a William Buckley Democrat which is an oxymoron if I ever wrote one. Now with his victory, Lieberman sees himself as a power broker, threatening to with hold his support from any Democrat who espouses an end to the Iraq war.

That's a dangerous game. I think--and hope-- his 15 minutes are almost over.

Lieberman’s influence over the national political debate is waning – a decline that none of the Sunday morning windbags--thanks Calvin Trillin-- foresaw last November.

The truth is that all front-running Democratic candidates, all of whom favor a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, are doing well ignoring Mr. Lieberman’s electoral prescription. With President Bush’s approval ratings in the toilet, thanks to Iraq and a series of failed domestic policies, the next election is the Democrats’ to lose.

It’s now apparent that they need nothing more than that from him. Republicans have labored to portray Mr. Lieberman’s defeat in last year’s Senate primary as evidence that the Democratic Party has been over-run by weak-kneed and vulnerable on foreign policy and national security issues.

As Glenn Greenwald and others have noted, that game is over. In years past, a public association with Lieberman was helpful to Democrats, a reassurance to a more hawkish electorate that they were as “tough” as the G.O.P. But in 2007, embracing Lieberman’s intransigence is a decided political liability – evidenced most startlingly by a recent poll that found that even 58 percent of Republicans in Iowa want a troop withdrawal in the next six months.

When Holy Joe uses a national television interview to dust off old attacks on the Democratic Party’s foreign policy credentials while at the same time actually declaring that “the surge is working,” it only benefits his former party’s standing with the war-wary public. There are few, if any Democrats, quaking at his threat to endorse a Republican in ’08.

Greenwald said it very well in Salon. "Those who compose that entrenched Beltway power establishment — the endlessly reelected political officials, the hordes of consultants and lobbyists who feed off and control them, and the pampered, self-loving “journalists” who enable it all — are characterized by a single-minded quest to perpetuate their own power, flavored by a thinly masked contempt for the masses on whose behalf this system ostensibly plods along. Lieberman’s conduct last night was a perfect textbook for all of those afflictions.

Like the establishment mavens who rushed to defend him, Lieberman exposed himself as a man driven by a single, overarching motivation — a desperate desire to cling to his source of power, his Senate seat, not because of any political ideals he wants to pursue but solely because of the personal satisfaction, attention and benefits it provides him. Embodying one of the defining attributes of the permanent Beltway class, Lieberman plainly craves — has become addicted to — the petty trappings of his role in the grand Beltway court. The only cause that seems to stir Joe Lieberman to anger, aggression and confrontation is the glorious struggle for Joe Lieberman to cling to his Senate seat."

Lieberman is of course oblivious to evolving political landscape. "I haven't changed," Lieberman explained to Dan Balz of the Washington Post. "Events around me have changed."

As Balz wrote, "Lieberman's friends and allies have watched this drama play out with differing emotions -- both a sense of sadness that someone they have long respected has been caught in the vise of the Iraq war and a sense of alarm that he either ignored the warning signs or was somehow incapable or unwilling to adjust to them."

We're tired of Joe Lieberman and his threats. Let's hope for a clear Democratic victory and sweeping of the Senate chamber so Lieberman can get the treatment he so richly deserves--being ignored. Personally I think of him as much a traitor as a hypocrite. With all good luck, a clear majority would marginalize his importance and reduce him to being the impotent pariah that he is.

And that impotence may wake up other voters to the painful lesson of believing a career politician who would do and say anything to be reelected.