It’s not just the war

January 5, 2006

The New Republic’s Peter Beinart wrote a provocative piece this week on the Dem Senator that seems to drive liberal activists more nuts than most Republicans: Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman. As Beinart explains, the left is letting Lieberman’s position on the war obscure what is an otherwise progressive record.

Why are MoveOn, Daily Kos, and so many other liberal activists so keen to find a primary challenger against Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman? The more you peel the onion, the stranger the answer becomes.

The common explanation is that Lieberman is a conservative. Or, more specifically, he’s a conservative who represents a liberal state — and, therefore, has no excuse. But, according to conventional indices, Lieberman is not a conservative. […]

So why do so many liberals think Lieberman is a conservative? The obvious answer is his steadfast support for the Iraq war. For many liberals, ADA-style vote tabulations are irrelevant; Iraq is the crucible of our age.

I think this is largely true, but only captures a small piece of the puzzle behind frustration with Lieberman.

To be sure, his enthusiastic support for the Bush line on Iraq has pushed dissatisfaction with Lieberman from back-room complaints to in-your-face disgust. But the point I think Beinart neglects is that the left wasn’t happy with Lieberman long before the war even began. The senator burned some bridges by backing the White House on Iraq, but the truth is, those bridges were pretty shaky before.

There’s so much more than Iraq. Lieberman was one of the first Dem senators to take the lead among the “blame Hollywood” crowd, joining conservative blowhards such as Bill Bennett in castigating movies, music, and video games for undermining our culture and warping our kids’ minds. Lieberman has also backed Republican initiatives on faith-based funding, school vouchers, and tort “reform.”

Every time Lieberman would stand with the GOP on these issues, the Dems’ grassroots would get a little more annoyed. Bienart’s correct that the war has pushed the left beyond mere frustration, but let’s not forget the long road that got us to this point.

Don’t forget Joementum’s high-profile Senate-floor takedown of Clinton.

And his tragically uninspiring role as Gore’s running mate (although that one, really, should be lain at the feet of Gore himself and Donna Brazile).

  • ‘Don’t forget Joementum’s high-profile Senate-floor takedown of Clinton.’

    In contrast to his fawning support of Bush

  • Iraq sometimes does become a binary. For the people who said they believed in the Administration’s claims, then you can give them a float when it turned out that the intel and, more importantly, the Bush team was ‘dead wrong’. There were a lot of people going on good faith that the Bush people weren’t deceiving America. For instance, Hagel, Kerry and even the architect of the resolution for force, Dick Gephardt, never imagined they were being snookered on the matter of war.

    Then there are those who suspected or knew that there was a scam regarding the invasion and didn’t care, just so long as the invasion took place. While Joe may not have wanted invasion opponents to look bad, he has more than a few statements that this invasion was a good thing – despite all the facts that come out showing this was a bad thing done by poorly reasoned people. He cast his lot with the worst elements in this debate.

    As such, he gets zero sympathy and zero credit for anything else from here on out.

  • This is my point exactly. If he would have fought as hard for Gore as he seems to for Bush we may not be in this mess. Sure it was Gore’s fault for puting him on the ticket but the guy didn’t even commit to the VP race wholeheartedly.

    The current measure of a conservative now a days is one of a Christian Crusader. Since it seems unlikely Joe will be speaking at the local Hartford meeting of Jews for Jesus he could never make the cut as a conservative. He is more like a 1980’s Republican than a 21st Centuray wingnut.

    I can’t describe particularly what it is about him but I know I don’t like it. I guess in that way he is like pornography. Diry Dirty Joe.

  • For me, the final straw with Lieberman was when I learned he had teamed with Lynne Cheney and, shortly after 9/11, began systematically harassing and blacklisting “leftist” academics. He basically hastened the whole notion that trying to put the atrocity in a historical context was somehow unpatriotic, which I find infuriating, particularly in light of the neocons’ endless and moronic comic book talk of a “crusade” against “evil-doers.” Fat lot of good THAT has done us.

  • And his tragically uninspiring role as Gore’s running mate

    In particular, his immediate rolling-over while Florida was being stolen.

  • As a Connecticut resident, I have been long frustrated with Lieberman. It doesn’t feel like a left-right thing. I am not at the left end of the party. Lieberman likes to be sanctimonious in a very public way. His stand on Clinton was typical. I don’t get the sense that he cares whether his stands are effective. He’s above all that. He’s very easy for the Republicans to use, and he allows himself to be used.

  • Let’s not forgot also that Lieberman got the strong support of William Buckley when he knocked off Lowell Wiecker for the Senate back in 1988. He’s gotten in bed with the right whenever it’s suited him since the very beginning.

  • Leiberman has consistently greeted the administration with public respect and a spirit of compromise. He has attempted at several points to push forward their legislation (with success) and his own legislation (with less success). It’s almost completely a one way relationship and he’s been burned innumerable times.

    I believe he thinks that by “playing ball” he at least gets to put his touch on legislation. In fact he is simply ensuring the passage of bad legislation and allowing the president and the press to use the word “bipartisan” and discuss divisions within the democratic party. Contemplating a cabinet position?!?? He’s a politically miscalculating idiot with the patience of Job stuck in a time warp between some an era containing a congenial federal government and the present.

    He’s also been assisting future candidate McCain in getting his moderate credentials through the introduction of pseudo gun control legislation and never-gonna-pass green house gas legislation. Who knows what they’ll cook up next year.

    Harry Reid and Howard Dean should be the most upset with the buffoon. He’s bad for the party and he ain’t helping Connecticut either.

  • How about when Joe chaired the Senate committee in 2002 that could have investigated Enron and other corporate frauds and abuses? For my satisfaction, he wouldn’t even have had to make the explicit connection to Enron’s Republican golden boys–Bush, DeLay, Gramm, and I believe Armey–but just push harder for exposure and punishment. Instead, he seemed to go out of his way to avoid the issue.

    Anyone who has more scorn for rappers and movie producers than pinstriped felons whose greed ruined thousands of lives, deserves all the scorn we can heap upon him.

  • And don’t forget Lieberman playing patty-cake with Dick Cheney during the one and only Vice-Presidential debate in 2000 – when instead he should have eviscerated Cheney for his neanderthal voting record in Congress…

    Or how he sabotaged Gore’s Florida recount when he said that late military ballots from overseas should be included in the recount – when instead he should have said that rule of law regarding late ballots should be strictly observed: ie that’s what our guys overseas are fighting for – democracy and the rule of law and one assumes that, in the spirit of fair play, that’s what our fighting guys would want…

    Lieberman is a loose cannon and is worthy of a serious Democratic challenger.

  • Ditto to Bubba. And the same to Bienart, whose interest in defending Lieberman arises from the latter’s support for TNR’s favorite war.

  • Lieberman’s voting record (aside from the war) may be fine—even admirable, but his faning over Bush, his FOX appearences, and his glee at throwing other Dems and leftys under the bus is my problem.

    I’m with Bubba.

  • Don’t forget Lieberman’s voting with the Republicans for cloture on the bankruptcy bill. Just like with Joe Biden, when push comes to shove Lieberman will always side with his big-money corporate backers against rank and file Democratic interests.

  • So with all the spy-scandal stuff going on, could joementum actually be a double agent?

    After bush said that Abamoff was an equal opportunity money-giver, maybe we should check old joe’s books. Maybe the preznit knows something we don’t know!

  • I’m with Farinata X, Mr. Furious and SRY, but strictly in a fraternal way. I was going to say “strictly in a christian love” sort of way, but with the good Rev. Robertson, and the recent articles on various deviant ministers and preachers of that faith, I don’t think that really means much these days.

    Mr. Furious really captures it–don’t care really how a person votes but the other conduct is downright unacceptable if not treasonous.

    Although the comments above do remind me of the scene in The Waterboy (I know, bad flick) where the team was sitting around at halftime telling bobby boucher stories, except in the movie they were “positive” stories.

  • He sealed it himself with a kiss. This President is an abomination to the country and to little ‘d’ democracy and to have a big ‘D’ Democrat cozy up to him the way Lieberman did makes me sick to my stomach.

    Too bad he can’t just give Bush a blow job and we’d be done with the whole mess of ’em.

  • Lieberman needs to go, is of no service to the dems., in his constant backing of conservative ideology. He can just join the republican party and run as one of them.

  • It’s not just that Lieberman continues to support the war, it’s the fact that he publicly slams Democrats and warns that Americans shouldn’t question the president.

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