Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Backing Lieberman

Robert Tanner, AP National Writer
Six years after Democrats backed him for vice president, Sen. Joe Lieberman struggled to overcome a tough challenge in Tuesday's primary and escape payback from his own party for supporting the Iraq war.

Democrats backed Lieberman for VP??  Nobody ever asked me about it.  I don’t think they ever asked you either.  I always thought that he was picked by Gore, and that we supported Lieberman because we supported Gore.  Now, apparently, we were backing Lieberman in his own right.  Gee, I guess I don’t feel so bad about voting for Nader now.  

I’m not suggesting that most Dems were anti-Lieberman back then (though there were certainly a few); but it’s entirely bogus to suggest that we supported him on a national level.  I really didn’t know much about Lieberman back then, but shit, had there been a VP primary, Lieberman would not have been the one picked.  And I always saw him as a kind of drag on the ticket.  Again, not that I knew much, but that he was just kind of a wimpy looking guy from Connecticut (nothing personal intended against Connecticut); and not a superstar vote-getter.  

But now, Team Gore’s decision has apparently made us all hypocritical backstabbers issuing payback for exactly one issue.  Somehow, his thorough trouncing in the 2004 primary didn’t happen.  And as a reminder, Al Gore is more popular than ever.  And even still, many folks only voted for him in 2000 solely because he was the Democrat.  Somehow, these basic facts elude Mr. National Writer Tanner.

1 comment:

Marshall Darts said...

Joe's Still Got It Wrong

Joe Lieberman said he lost yesterday because of the excessive partisanship that has become part of politics. He's wrong. He lost because to an opponent in his own party who ran an issue-oriented, anti-war campaign.

Lieberman's backing of a foolish president with a foolish foreign policy was not bipartisanship. It was foolishishness itself.

The Republicans should take note of what happened to Fox News' favorite Democrat. They know that anti-war sentiment isn't limited to Democratic voters.

Tip O'Neill used to say,"All politics is local." Well, when a young soldier is buried in your state or district as a casualty of this foolish war, that makes Iraq a very local issue.