Alec Jacobs, Staff Writer
Ideology: Conservative | Writing from: Washington, DC
Alec Jacobs takes a break from his ‘terrible liberal of the month’ series to commend the bipartisan history of Sen. Joe Lieberman.
This month’s liberal actually isn’t so bad. I decided to bestow October’s highest honor on someone who’s terrible at being a liberal, and that award goes to none other than Senator Joe Lieberman.
How could I possibly like someone who was Al Gore’s vice presidential nominee? Well, it’s difficult. But Sen. Lieberman’s voting record and, more importantly, his decision regarding the Democrat’s public health option, makes it a little bit easier. (He has really shifted from Democrat to moderate Republican and he’s one of the good moderate Republicans, not one of those Olympia-Snowe, basically-a-Democrat Republicans or worse, one of those Arlen-Specter, actually-a-Democrat Republicans.)
To go from vice presidential nominee on the Democrat ticket in 2000 to speaking in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin just eight years later is a shift Democrats would call “traitorous” and one I would call “admirable.” His reason for supporting the Republicans in 2008? The same reasons that the Democrats abandoned him in 2006, when he was forced to run as an Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate and still defeated his opponents soundly: support for the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Lieberman’s top priority is the safety of the nation (you would think that would be everyone’s top priority, regardless of political affiliation, but that isn’t the case), and he threw his support behind the candidate that he believed would do a better job of keeping our nation secure.
Of course, after this, the Democrat Party was in a frenzy (aren’t they always?), demanding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remove Lieberman from his post as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which obviously would have made sense because Lieberman’s decision to support the Republicans was based solely on his interest in homeland security. Coming from the party who constantly criticizes the Republicans for not being more accepting of moderate voices, this was especially strange. And this was not just a criticism of a moderate, but actually an attempt to physically remove a moderate from the party caucus. Gotta love the hypocrisy of the Democrats!
This month, Lieberman was an especially wonderful liberal.
He announced on October 27th that he would support a Republican filibuster of any health care plan with a public option, saying that “to put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt.” And he’s absolutely right. Even with Reid’s “opt-out” idea, taxpayers would still be responsible for paying for the public option, even if their states choose to opt out. I always knew I loved Lieberman. This just confirmed it.
So while Lieberman may not be a terrible liberal in the usual sense of the word terrible, he’s my favorite kind of liberal: the kind that’s sometimes a conservative.
sometimes a conservative? Libermann is the Democrat version of Specter…he just hasn’t switiched parties yet.
Joe Lieberman is the new Zell Miller.
Also, thanks, Alec, for the implication that Democrats don’t care about the safety of the nation. That’s truly unique. Oh, wait, no, the Republican Party has been using that shameful tactic since the 1950s in order to twist Democrats into voting for the legislation that would violate the basic rights of American citizens.
Well, they don’t.
The reason he’s so “terrible at being a liberal” is probably that he is not one. Membership in the Democratic Party does not make one a liberal. The complex nature of the American party system means that party affiliations are different at different levels of the political system.
As to Lieberman specifically, if Republicans had retained control in 2006, do you think he would have continued to caucus with the Democrats? Hell no. He’s as shameless of a political game-player as Specter. At least Specter was willing to admit it.
Colin,
What makes Lieberman a “shameless political game player”
He stood up against his party, made decisions he knew would hurt him electorally because he had positions he believed in, backs up the GOP when he agrees with them, and backs up his party when he agrees.
That sounds like someone with principle to me, not a “game player”
Personally, I prefer politicians that have their own principles rather than spoon-fed party politics.
Dodd, Schumer, Reid, McConnell, etc…there’s your game players. Idiots that stand up for nothing, and stand down whenever their party asks them to.
I’m referring to Lieberman’s choice to continue to caucus with the Democratic Party after that party’s voters had chosen to oust him from his Senate seat. He did so because it was the way to be a Chairman of a committee. If the Republicans had held their majority in 2006, there is no way that he would have stayed loyal to the Democrats.
you have 41 comments in the past five weeks, does anyone read the garbage you spew onto this site anymore? a few of your peers had 35+ last week alone. dont go career hunting in punditry kid.
Well not having comments doesn’t really mean people aren’t reading. From what I understand, my articles actually do have somewhat high readership. Thanks for your brilliant analysis, consisting of counting the number of comments on my posts.
The articles with all of those comments are mainly one person saying outrageous things and everyone yelling at him.
Made of Fail, you truly are made of fail. The only thing that less comments should tell you is that there’s nothing to argue and that what he “spews” is the truth and you can’t argue the truth. The topics he writes about are backed up with facts which leave little room for argument. So, yes, therefore there will be less comments. It has nothing to do with his “garbage.” But the critique was fabulous, must say.
It has been under Republicans that services for the military such as electrical wiring were moved from in-house to contractors. These guys cost more, but do shoddy work because training is an added expense the contracting companies would rather not pay for as it eats into the obscene margins that help fund Republican re-election campaigns.
See this Fox News story as a refresher (since I know you guys can’t believe anybody else.):
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340012,00.html
Contractors dole out 7 times as much cash to the party that “cares about our troops”.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/halliburton.asp (more than 7x as much to GOP)
Blackwater, KGR, Haliburton. They are quite expensive compared with training new recruits to do the same jobs, but there’s no way of skimming tax dollars that way.
The neglect of veteran services is an almost entirely Republican phenomenon and the disconnect between this policy and caring about national security is almost unfathomable.
Also remarkable was the slipshod logistics that left very large portions of our warriors with no body armor and little more than SUV’s to navigate the battlefield with. Why this problem was met with such disinterest by the GOP I’m unsure.
The GOP had both houses and teh presidency and a very compliant Democratic minority and yet all this happened anyway.
I suppose it’s possible only the GOP cares about our nation’s security. We can only assuming that caring doesn’t translate to anything resembling successful execution.
Perhaps we should hope for an effective Democratic national defense despite Democratic indifference to our safety? If they do a better job (tough to imagine a bigger Charlie Foxtrot than Bush’s Iraq) but care less about national security, why should we be impressed by feckless Republican fervor? You can want something really badly, but if you can’t deliver… do I care how sincere you were?
Even if I believed Republicans are more patriotic and care more for our safety and the support of the troops, should I want them in command if they can’t do the job? I hope none of your readers place intents and rhetoric above evidence. If they do, they’ll get more bungling and boondoggles.