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Triumph of the Turncoat Houdini

November 18th, 2008
By ROBERT STEIN

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Today’s escape from losing his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee caps Joe Lieberman’s career of having it both ways in two decades of sanctimonious posturing and backroom politicking.

With a novelist’s eye for the absurd, Joan Didion nailed him in her reporting of the 2000 election campaign:

“Senator Lieberman, who had come to the nation’s attention as the hedge player who had previously seized center stage by managing both to denounce the president [Bill Clinton] for “disgraceful” and “immoral” behavior and to vote against his conviction (similarly, he had in 1991 both voiced support for and voted against the confirmation of Clarence Thomas) was not, except to the press, an immediately engaging personality…

“His speech patterns, grounded in the burdens he bore for the rest of us and the personal rewards he had received from God for bearing it, tended to self-congratulation.”

Lieberman called today’s verdict “fair and forward-looking” and one of “reconciliation and not retribution” but…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Senate, Joe Lieberman, Democrats, Politics, Books. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    I have no use for the man. I think he is an opportunist with litlle loyalty except to himself. I understand Obama's make nicey nicey intent, but I also hope he realizes the need to play hardball isn't something to be deferred. In a similar vein I read there may be no investigation of possible war crimes by the Bush administration. If there is going to be no adherence to principle, no accounting, then what is the message? I think we all know the answer to that, and it isn't a good one. Now I realize the transgressions of Joe Lieberman don't rise to that same level, but my point is about principle and The. Need. To. Stick. To. It.
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    I think Glenn Greenwald summed it up well:

    Senate Democrats believe it's important to reward someone with a powerful Chairmanship who has been a vehement supporter of George Bush, the war in Iraq, the full panoply of anti-constitutional abuses, and an amplifier of the most toxic right-wing toxic points. At the same time, they consider it a good thing to scorn their supporters on what they consider to be "the Left." For anyone willing to hear it, they've made as clear and resounding a statement -- again -- about who they are and who they do and don't listen to.

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/...

    Bipartisanship is a poor end in itself, and as a goal would provide little change from the last 8 years (coasting doesn't count in these currents). For those who have been paying attention lately, change is going to be critical if the US is going to move forward - and I don't mean just the fantasy of change or a change of skin color.

    As you can tell Robert, I won't be celebrating Lieberman's "smug, self-righteous, self-serving wrong-headedness" either.
 
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