Joe Lieberman isn’t quite in the same league as Zell Miller, but he’s getting close. If the former VP candidate is still having trouble figuring out why his “Joementum” couldn’t produce a single primary where his support broke double digits, he shouldn’t have to look further than some of today’s headlines.
Lieberman has managed to infuriate a whole lot of Dems — even more so than usual — with his dismissive attitude of Richard Clarke’s devastating charges against the White House. Appearing on Fox News Channel (of all places), Lieberman discounted Clarke’s account of what happened inside the White House after 9/11.
But the thought — the charge, if I hear it correctly, that Dick Clarke has made, that the Bush administration was more focused on Iraq in the days after September 11th, than on September 11th and getting back at the terrorists, I see no basis for it. And I think we’ve got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric, and not to go about what happened in the past so totally that we divide ourselves in doing what I think all — both parties want to do, and certainly both presidential candidates want to do: win the war on terrorism and succeed in stabilizing and democratizing Iraq.
Lieberman believes Clarke is wrong about what happened and to bolster his argument, the alleged Dem points to…nothing in particular. Lieberman believes there’s “no basis” for Clarke’s account and we’re just supposed to take Lieberman’s word for it. Yeah, that’s helpful.
Clarke was the president’s top counterterrorism coordinator; Lieberman had no direct contact with Bush about the administration’s war on terror. Clarke has first-hand experience with the White House team in the Situation Room on 9/11 and the months that followed; Lieberman was in the Senate. Clarke poured over thousands of pages of intelligence documents and spoke directly with Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz about the war on terror and the administration’s priorities, but we should discount his account of what happened because Joe Lieberman says there’s “no basis” for Clarke’s charges.
DHimMI, of Daily Kos fame, wrote a letter to Lieberman this morning and did a fine job taking the senator to task.
All your coddling of the right wing to this point was ridiculous, and it’s severely tainted whatever historical legacy you may leave. But today you went too far. When you dismissed Richard Clarke’s claims and tacitly accepted at face value the statements and actions of the Bush White House, you sided with those who dismiss the real security concerns of our country in favor of political advantage and expedience. You showed that all along you really did lack the temperament, skepticism, and judgment to be President. I am glad you were defeated in the primary, and I hope that a responsible Democrat who is actually capable of recognizing the real security interests of the United States replaces you in the Senate in 2007.
I don’t think Lieberman will be able to live this one down.