Joementum is moving in the wrong direction

December 7, 2005

Joe Lieberman may be many things, but a tone-deaf politician isn’t one of them. He’s won three U.S. Senate races, was a two-term state attorney general, and was even the Majority Leader of the Connecticut Senate back in the ’70s. Lieberman is savvy and shrewd when he needs to be.

Which is why I’m confused about his latest tactics. Lieberman is making lots of moves, but all of them seem to be in the wrong direction.

A year after failing badly in his presidential campaign, Lieberman is eyeing re-election next year in a state Bush lost by a wide margin. Indeed, considering the fact that the president currently enjoys an abysmal 32% approval rating in Connecticut, you’d think Lieberman would see no reason to move further to the right — especially with rumors circulating about a serious challenge from the left next year.

And yet, Lieberman keeps cozying up to the Bush White House. Last week, it was a Wall Street Journal op-ed defending Bush’s Iraq plans. This week, it’s defending Bush against criticism in general.

Lieberman, whom the Bush administration has praised repeatedly for his war stance, defended the president. “It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he’ll be commander-in-chief for three more years,” the senator said. “We undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril.”

For most of us, Bush doesn’t need much help in undermining his own credibility, but perhaps that’s beside the point. What is Lieberman getting at? Yes, Bush has three years left in the White House, but why should the president’s critics stop pointing out Bush’s mendacity? For that matter, why would a Democratic senator up for re-election in a very “blue” state make the argument?

Naturally, the White House is thrilled with Lieberman. Scott McClellan sang his praises yesterday during the press briefing, noting that Bush aides “work very closely with him in the war on terrorism, and we appreciate his leadership, and we appreciate his ideas.”

I’ve generally discounted the rumors that Lieberman would be in the running for a cabinet post in the Bush administration, but lately, I’ve begun to wonder.

Joe Lieberman likes George W. Bush so much he voted for him twice. Must we keep pretending he’s a “Democrat”? Republicans can purge their ranks of members who don’t play ball (New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith comes to mind), I think it’s time we do the same.

  • He wants to be Secretary of State.

    Or, maybe he knows CT Dems won’t vote for a Republican, but CT Republicans might vote for him if he backs the President enough. Could be a reelect strategy.

  • Hey CB-

    You should check out Digby as he posted an old speech by Lieberman criticizing Clinton with three years left to his presidency over the Lewinski scandal. Lieberman’s really starting to sound and act like a Republican hack, holding the Democrats to one standard in the past and conveniently forgetting that standard when it comes to Republicans in the present (IOKIYAR).

    By the way, I lived in Conn for many years and voted for Lieberman in the past, but his hard tacking to the right would make me vote for any left-leaning challenger. Unfortunately, he’s got tremendous support in Conn still and the only way to bring him back to the fold (or bring him down) is to tie Bush around his neck at every opportunity.

  • You should check out Digby…

    Michelle’s right, Digby does have a good post on this, comparing Lieberman’s willingness to undermine Clinton’s credibility, but not Bush’s.

  • I’m not sure how much support he really has in CT – there seems to be a good amount of discontent there w/him (well, at least among my relatives). A few more statements like this and he’ll all but assure a primary challenge from the “left”.

    Seeing as how Bush isn’t all that popular in CT, his pro-Bush statements will probably backfire on him, meaning that maybe he is looking for a cabinet position.

  • I don’t pretend to understand what is going on with Lieberman and I have never been one of his fans.

    The most charitable interpretation of his behavior is that he is like the cop with a bullhorn trying to talk his way in to a building in which a thug has taken hostages: “Okay George, you are misunderstood. People aren’t giving you the respect you deserve. But George, I do understand you and I want to help. Now unlock the door and let me in.” Once inside he hopes he can diffuse the situation and release the American people.

    If this is his game and he succeeds, the upside is he is out of the Senate which clears the way for a real Democrat to run. I doubt that he would actual have any impact once inside the administration, but in terms of policy things couldn’t get much worse. The downside is the White House would use his willingness to serve for propaganda purposes as they are already using his kind words of support. So what else is new?

    Are there any other takes on the situation?

  • What happened with Weicker? There were conflicting stories yesterday about whether or not he would challenge Zell, er, I mean Joe.

  • Joe Lieberman, (D-Likud). One nation from the River (Euphrates) to the (Mediterranean) Sea.

    Which party seems more likely to deliver on this promise right now?

    In the 1970’s, with Scoop Jackson et al. running the defense policy shop, and Lieberman was coming into poltics, the answer was ‘Democratic’.

    So Joe came into politics as a Democrat.

    But nowadays, for example, Paul Wolfowitz calls himself a “Scoop Jackson Republican.”

    Lieberman can be accused of a lot of things, but inconsistency on this point is not one of them.

  • Remember the whispers about a Kerry-McCain ticket? Well, McCain wouldn’t jump ship to play second fiddle (love mixing those metaphors!), but I’m sure he’d be pleased as punch to have a Dem as a runningmate.

  • You can’t read Lieberman without thinking about Israel. Israel’s in an awful fix going forward, and the beachead the U.S. has established in Iraq (for all the wrong reasons) makes us literal neighbors to Israel in a way we haven’t been before. Suddenly our political and military interests are much more aligned, and Joe – being Jewish – obviously sees that as a good thing. Hence he sees us leaving as a very, very bad thing.

    (Think about it from his point of view. We go into Iraq, piss off all the Arabs in the neighborhood, turn the one secular government in the region into a Shiite proxy state for Iran, and then we leave? Wha…?)

  • “We undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril.”

    To underscore the obvious, it’s not we who undermine the president’s crediblity. It’s Bush and the rest of the GOP Crime Family who undermine the president’s credibility… at our nation’s peril.

    Lickspittle Lieberman (Loverman? yuck!) should be summarily dumped from the Party.

  • maybe this is payback for getting his submarine base preserved

    For preserved, read ‘sort of preserved’. The Navy announced yesterday that New London/Groton will no longer do maintenace and overhauling of subs, just new construction, with the loss of ca. 3000 jobs beginning in late ’06.

    The Triangulation Twins, Olympia Snowe and Susan ‘Creamcheese’ Collins, snagged that business for Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

    A pair of Republican faux moderates beats a single Democratic faux moderate loses every time, when there’s not enough baksheesh to go around.

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