Independent "Democrat"
Not long ago, Joe Lieberman was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President. And he seems highly motivated to prove how bad a Vice President he would be.
Today, the Senate voted to cut off debate on a motion to express no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose sworn testimony to Congress earlier this year seems dissembling at best and wholly untruthful at worst. Of the 53 votes to cut off debate, 46 came from Democrats and 7 came from Republicans. Four Democrats missed the vote—three who are running for President, plus Tim Johnson, who is recuperating from a stroke. The only so-called Democrat who voted not to cut off debate was "independent Democrat" Joe Lieberman.
When he first was elected to the Senate, Lieberman won by running to the right of liberal Republican Lowell Weicker. Nowadays, the left flank of the Republican Party has moved rightward—no one will mistake Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, Chuck Hagel, Gordon Smith, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, and John Sununu for Jacob Javits and Lowell Weicker. Yet Joe Lieberman has moved even further to the right than the Republican Party has.
Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Joe Lieberman, Senate, stupid "independent" tricks
Independent in Name Only
It should have been obvious by now that Joe Lieberman's self-description of an "independent Democrat" means only that he will stop caucusing with the Democrats in the Senate when it suits him. So it should come as no surprise that he is already intimating that a switch to the Republicans might suit him sooner rather than later.
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, says his disagreement with the Democrats over the Iraq war won't prevent him from working with his former party. For now.
"I hope the moment doesn't come that I feel so separated from the caucus" that he decides to shift allegiance to the Republicans, he said in an interview. Asked what Democratic actions might cause such a break, he invoked Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 definition of pornography: "I'll know it when I see it."
The 65-year-old lawmaker is the margin of difference in the Democrats' 51-49 control of the Senate. A switch to the Republicans, which he won't rule out, would create a 50-50 tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a deciding vote for Republican control.
Anyone who would prefer Dick Cheney exerting control over the organization of the chamber to the status quo might be a small-d democrat, but is surely not a large-D Democrat.
Why should Lieberman's dalliance with the Republicans come as no surprise? Read accounts of his 1988 campaign against (truly liberal) Republican Lowell Weicker, note his positions and campaign strategy, and see how the right wing knew they had an ideological ally in Lieberman.
Labels: Joe Lieberman, Lowell Weicker, Stupid Republican tricks
