[Dean's World] Dean: The Nation's Lieberman Factor

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Posted by Dean:
The Nation's Lieberman Factor
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1162863418.shtml


   Arch-Conservative William F. Buckley Jr.:

     Years ago I argued in favor of Al Lowenstein, a prominent New York
     liberal, for Congress, and received the same bemused interrogation
     from the press. On that occasion I said simply that I was defying
     my principled opposition to many of Mr. Lowenstein's positions in
     order to vote for a human being I thought superior. On the matter
     of Mr. Lieberman, there is more there than a personal attraction to
     the individual. Alan Schlesinger, a Republican candidate, commented
     on my choice, "I think it's ironic that anyone as conservative as
     Bill Buckley would help someone as liberal as Joe Lieberman." But
     Mr. Schlesinger misses the point.

     The important contention next Tuesday doesn't involve the
     Republican candidate. It is Lieberman vs. Ned Lamont, the other
     Democrat. And the political drama in Connecticut isn't just among
     the candidates. It has to do with the future of the Democratic
     Party -- and that future affects everyone.

     What happened in this campaign was the materialization on August 8
     of an ideological posse. Its mission was to punish a Democrat for
     the sin of backing President Bush in the Iraq war.

     Now it gets a little complicated because there are many Americans
     who oppose the war as it has evolved. If you promise not to tell
     anybody, my own conviction is that if George Bush ever took to the
     bottle again, he might confide that he wishes he had never got into
     war in Iraq. I too wish he hadn't, but that's not because he was
     wrong in going in. He was moved by a conviction that Saddam Hussein
     was productively engaged in manufacturing weapons of mass
     destruction, that he was in league with a terrorist movement that
     threatened the Middle East, and that America needed to demonstrate
     its willingness to use its own resources to fight against incipient
     threats to regional and national security.

     Joe Lieberman agreed. He was hardly the only Democrat to back
     President Bush in 2003, but his special prominence -- he had, after
     all, been Al Gore's running mate in the campaign of 2000 --
     attracted attention to his continued backing of Mr. Bush on foreign
     policy. The especially sibilant left set out to make the backing of
     President Bush an excommunicable offense.

   Read the rest [1]here.

   An interesting bit of history here is that Buckley lives in
   Connecticut, and is a well-known Republican, but also backed Lieberman
   back in the 1980s when Joe ran against Republican Senator Lowell P.
   Weicker.

   In 2000, while I voted for Bush, there was one major thing that made
   me think hard about voting for Gore: his choice of Joe Lieberman as
   his running-mate. Because, just as today, I loved politicians who were
   more than just partisan hacks and party-liners. That's probably why I
   was so horrified when the "net-roots" raised up collectively to crap
   all over Joe Lieberman. Joe might be a reliably left/liberal vote in
   the Senate on most issues, but almost alone among Democrats who voted
   to act against Saddam Hussein he refused to apologize for it, and
   refused to endorse defeatism and recrimination. He actually took
   responsibility for his vote and, more to the point, continued to
   insist he'd voted the right way.

   So did Dick Gephardt by the way. I wish he hadn't retired in 2004.

   The reprisals Joe Lieberman has been subject to because he refuses to
   give up on Iraq have sickened me. I wish I lived in Connecticut, just
   so I could vote for Joe. Here's a moderate guy, who usually votes
   left-of-center but knows how to make friends and forge bonds with
   members of the other party. And to stand up for what he believes in
   even if it doesn't always make him popular with the Party Faithful.

   Connecticut: I hope you choose Joe tomorrow.

   [EMBED]

   It matters not just because of this guy. It matters because it's a
   vote that says that regardless of which party you're a member of, or
   who you're mad at, there needs to be a place in American politics for
   people who aren't just party-liners, but who are people of real
   substance and conviction who will always vote their conscience. We
   need more people like that and not less.

References

   1. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/the_nations_lieberman_factor.html