No Go, Joe

I've been meaning to write about the loss of Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Senatorial primary in Connecticut on August 8 for several days now.

I must admit, although I'm not a Lieberman fan, I was pretty torn about who I wanted to win the primary. On the one hand, I thought Lieberman had veered far away from his constituents and showed no desire to change. On the other, I was worried about the effect of a Lamont win on the chances for Democrats to pick up three House seats in Connecticut. (In retrospect, I think that the Lamont win might end up helping Democrats more than hurting Democrats in those races, as more liberal voters will be motivated to turn out to vote for Lamont (and the Democratic House candidate in turn) than they would have been if Lieberman was the Democratic nominee.)

Over the weekend prior to the election, I was put off by the outrageous spin that Lanny Davis and other Lieberman supporters try to pin on Lieberman's infamous statement from last year that "we undermine the President's credibility at our nation's peril." According to Davis, Lieberman was talking not to his fellow Democrats, but to Republicans who politicized the war and used it as a political weapon, specifically citing the attacks against Max Cleland in 2002.

Garbage. Lieberman's statement SPECIFICALLY referred to Democrats. Here's the statement:

It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will
be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war
we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

For Lieberman and his cronies to invoke Max Cleland, when Lieberman did NOTHING help Cleland in 2002, even though Lieberman could have defended Cleland by pointing out how Cleland had supported Lieberman's initial bill to create the Homeland Security Department, stuck in my craw pretty bad.

But then on election day, I must admit I felt kinda bad for the guy and I wasn't sure if I wanted him to lose. Then came his speech after he lost, and I no longer felt any mixed feelings over his debate.

For Lieberman to essentially state that 52% of Democrats in Connecticut (including members of my family!) are some fringe element because they don't believe that George Bush should be followed blindly in the mess of Iraq and for other Lieberman misdeeds, showed me that he is unable to place any blame on himself and thus not worthy of serving in the Senate any longer.

He's just an incredibly selfish politician. To run as an independent now is the same as running for the Senate at the same time he was running for Vice President (and I think his independent decision ultimately cost him what turned out to be a very close race).

With all the recent articles about the race, I thought two points were particularly enlightening. The first discussed how Lieberman's basic political philosophy is to act in a bipartisan manner over issues of foreign policy and that explains his actions on Iraq -- essentially adopting a "politics stops at the water's edge" view. But in order for that to work, it takes two to tango. And the Bush Administration didn't go along, but Lieberman never saw that or altered his behavior:

"The stance that, for a senator, politics ought to stop at the water's edge
makes sense if and only if the president isn't playing politics with foreign
policy," said William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, who has often
sided with Lieberman on intraparty battles but disagrees with him on the
war.

"But this president and this administration manifestly have played
politics with foreign policy, and their chief political adviser has been totally
frank about that," he added. "I think it would have been permissible and even
advisable for Joe Lieberman to conclude at some point that a bipartisan foreign
policy has got to be a two-way street. He really didn't."

I think this, in a nutshell, explains what a lot of Democrats feel about Lieberman. He kept insisting that he wouldn't play politics with foreign policy, while Republicans were using the war on terror as a political club against Democrats. Patsy, I think, is the term probably most appropriate to describe Lieberman in this area.

The second point dealt with the bitterness Lieberman apparently felt after his 2004 Presidential bid was such an absolute disaster, and how that may have moved him away from his party and closer to Bush and his Iraq policy. Apparently, if you compare his statements about Bush and the war prior to his "three way tie for third place" in New Hampshire in January 2004 and afterwards, there was a marked change.

For someone to be that bitter over a disastrous presidential bid that he would give unqualified support to a disastrous foreign policy as a way to thumb his nose at those who shunned deserves what he got.

It's hard to believe he was a butterfly ballot away from being Vice President of the United States.
- posted by Joshua @ 4:19 PM (1) comments