This article is another one that will win me few points with my friends on the left. I like Senator Joseph Lieberman and I always have. I am not happy that he has become one of the favorite whipping boys of the progressive press and electorate. I am also unhappy that a campaign has been waged by progressive groups such as Progressive Democrats of America to find and support a candidate to run against him in the Democratic primary. I do not think these are positive things for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party should be a big tent in which people all the way from the Progressive Left of the party to the DLC right should be able to coexist, share ideas and come up with the best solutions for the country.
Joseph Lieberman has always been and has always voted exactly like who he is. Whether you have agreed with his votes or not (and to be sure, I have disagreed with many of his votes) you cannot say about him that he has pandered or compromised his beliefs. It is not as if he campaigned one way, then turned around and became a completely different senator then the one that the Connecticut voters elected. Knowing him and his belief system, you can usually predict how he will vote on an issue. Lieberman is a Modern Orthodox Jew (those unfamiliar with this brand of Judaism should check this Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/modern_orthodox_judaism ). People familiar with my articles know that I am Jewish as well, but more on the reformed side, but I am very familiar with the branches of Judaism and their beliefs. In general, Jews are overwhelmingly Democrats, but those who are more observant and tend towards religious orthodoxy tend towards political conservatism. Put more succinctly, most Orthodox Jews are Republicans. While I cannot quantify what I am about to say from any empirical sense, I believe that of the various sects of Orthodox Jews, only the Modern Orthodox have a large amount of Democrats in their ranks. Knowing what Modern Orthodoxy is this is not surprising. Modern Orthodoxy attempts to reconcile the biblical laws with the secular world achieving the best possible harmony with both. However, where there are significant conflicts, the Modern Orthodox Jew will select biblical over secular. A good example of this with Lieberman along with an example of a conflict between Modern Orthodoxy and other sects of Orthodox Judaism can be seen in this article http://www.cnsnews.com/viewpolitics.asp?try=no&page=\politics\archive\200008\pol20000814k.html, where a traditional Orthodox rabbi lambastes Lieberman for some of his views while a Modern Orthodox rabbi defends him.
There are many dangers in Progressive Democrats intentionally trying to run Lieberman out of his senate seat. For one, those who support the ouster of Lieberman are saying the Modern Orthodox Jewish beliefs have no place in the Democratic Party. It is putting a line in the sand and saying that if your beliefs are past this certain point you cannot be a Democrat. What we should be doing is to put forth a consistent set of values that typify the Democratic Party belief system, educating the public about why this belief system is best, and trying to influence all of our candidates and elected officials to adopt these values. Each branch of the Democratic Party should do this and fight for their particular views in the overall party platform. Progressives should understand that large segments of the country do not agree with them on the issues. It is much more important and effective to deal with this by using dialogue and education. Kicking people out of the party and such is not an effective means to accomplish the ultimate goal of a progressive country. It is an effective way of alienating people and shoring up the opposition and presenting the Democratic Party as out of touch with more and more people. The Republican Party already uses the line "The Democrats are out of touch with most Americans" frequently in their interviews and stump speeches. Shrinking the tent by kicking people out at the fringes only will reinforce this viewpoint.
I believe that having Senator Joe Lieberman in the party and in the Senate as a Democrat is a big plus for the Democratic Party. It shows our strength and the bigness' of our big tent. We still should articulate our displeasure to him for various votes or stances with which we may not agree but attempting to run him out of the senate is not the answer.
Steven Leser specializes in Politics, Science & Health, and Entertainment topics. He has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations.
Steven Leser writes for www.opednews.com, an internet only media site that has grown to become one of the highest traffic news sites in America, reaching more traffic, according to alexa.com, than all but the thirty largest daily newspapers in the US. Mr. Leser is one of the 500+ liberal pundits who, each month, are published in what has become one of the top five Liberal/progressive media sites in the US.
Politics has no nationality, religion, gender or race
Ok, Opinion vs Opinion. The article above is an opinion. I am expressing my opinion here too, nothing more, respectfully.
Although we are all vehemently pushed to believe in that myth that politics of the person is dictated by his/her ' views'. associated with his/her upbringing, religion, etc. it is my opinion that in reality it is not so. Exactly, Joe Loveman never changed because and only because he was serving his masters- the super- rich NE elite, the overly mad Stepford wives and husbands. He is not even a 'Jew' in a sense of what does that mean to be one: political intrigue made him a zombie. Lieberman has to be kicked out because he deliberately and knowingly betrayed the interests of our country for the narrow political lobbying agenda. He is so corrupt that he does not represent anyone anymore. His belonging to any religion is irrelevant. In fact, he speculates on those things, uses them for his advantage.
He is a disaster, a harmful individual who has to be exposed and trashed.
Having said all that I would like to repeat that my opinion is based only on the deeds of Lieberman and his behavior and I don't care if he is Jewish- Modern Orthodox or a member of Santeria. I respect all religions. But in politics there is no such thing no matter how many Jewish voters are Republicans or Democrats.
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Mark Sashine (54 articles, 19 quicklinks, 252 diaries, 3605 comments)
on Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 1:18:38 PM
Do you not understand that we must get rid of this guy because he votes with the Republicans and Democrats must have a majority if we're going to save this country and the world? So like him all you want, but you might want to think about joining a neocon blog where lieberman is appreciated. It's a tough issue to tackle, but Americans have to stop letting our government be hijacked by interest groups that represent the interests of other countries, including the cuban lobby in florida and the new hispanic lobby. We give these people safe harbor and then they start trying to run our government in a way that benefits their home country but is detrimental to Americans. I know the U.S. has done wrong things around the world and we need to get a responsible government that will stop that activity, but we can't just hand what's left of the country over to the interests of Israel or Cuba or latin america and think it will still be a place fit for anyone to live. Joe Lieberman loves Bush because Bush is a great defender of Israel.
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terri Kionka (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 83 comments)
on Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 3:04:43 PM
What a strange defense (If one can really call it a defense)
Sorry, but I can't figure this out at all. You wrote:
"those who support the ouster of Lieberman are saying the Modern Orthodox Jewish beliefs have no place in the Democratic Party."
First, I'd like to specifically inquire as to what the specific beliefs in question are, and how they effect Mr. Lieberman's votes.
Second, I really don't care what his religion is, where I come from, public policy shouldn't be based on personal religious convictions. If he value his religious beliefs more than the Constitution, I don't want him in office.
As defenses of Lieberman go, this was just weird. So maybe the author is implying that Orthodox Jews religiously support lying? Is this the argument? Because if it's not, I think we all need a good explanation as to why Senator Lieberman refuses to hold Bush accountable for his crimes in office.
O.K., that's it, I'm not going to waste any more time on dissecting this drivel, but with defenders like the author, just maybe we'll show Lieberman the door.
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Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments)
on Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 3:23:58 PM
About the best thing I can say about Lieberman is he's not as bad as Zell Miller. But he's the worst apologist for the Bush administration among Democrats in the senate. We are at war. The war was declared by right wing extremists who took over the Republican party. We didn't start it, but we're in it and Lieberman is a turncoat. During WWII, in concentration camps, they called people like Lieberman a "capo" someone who colluded with the Nazi captors.
You may be right about the big tent, and it makes sense to give some latitude to Democratic senators Landieu and Nelson, where they have to deal with a very different electorate. But Connecticut should be electing strong, solidly democratic candidates, like Feingold.
Lieberman is caught in the crossfire of a battle between the DLC and the progressive members of the Democratic party. He planted himself there. Ned Lamont is a great candidate whose victory will send a strong message to the Democratic party. I won't regret that the message will delivered on the political corpse (metaphorically speaking) of Joe Lieberman.
I'm Jewish too, btw.
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Rob Kall (869 articles, 4014 quicklinks, 345 diaries, 1846 comments)
on Monday, June 26, 2006 at 11:17:26 AM
I live in Connecticut. I work for Ned Lamont's campaign. I have had Sen. Lieberman over to my house to discuss politics. I have been involved with Progressive Democrats of America. I also have a very different view of what is going on here in Connecticut than Mr. Leser does.
I should note that contrary to what Mr. Leser claims, the Progressive Democrats of America have had no involvement with the Lamont campaign. As a matter of fact, Sen. Lieberman's brother-in-law is active with the Connecticut PDA group.
Mr. Leser is right, the Democratic Party should be a big tent in which people from the Progressive left to the DLC right should be welcome. There is a way in which you make people of different political perspectives welcome, it is an important part of our political heritage. It is called primaries. It is a good thing for the party to have primaries. It is a good thing for participants of the primaries to pledge to support the winner of the primary and not threaten to run as a petitioning candidate if they don't win the primary. Ned Lamont has promised to support the winner of the Democratic Party primary. Sen. Lieberman continues to talk about abandoning the Party.
People in Connecticut do not buy the argument that "Sen. Lieberman has always been ... who he is." In 1968, Sen. Lieberman helped form a progressive political organization. He was an activist attorney general. He was well known for his visits to local diners where he would engage local citizens in. Many people I know would gladly vote for the Joseph Lieberman that was active in Connecticut politics over twenty years ago. However, they do not believe that the Junior Senator from Connecticut is the same person they sent to Washington eighteen years ago.
I hope that Senator Lieberman does not abandon the Democratic Party. I believe he has important things to offer. However, I believe that Mr. Lamont has important things to offer as well, and I believe that Mr. Lamont offers the leadership that people from Connecticut are no longer getting from Sen. Lieberman. Mr. Lamont should be our U.S. Senatorial candidate, and Sen. Lieberman should stay in the party and advocate for his beliefs.
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Aldon Hynes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Monday, June 26, 2006 at 11:20:12 AM
As such I beg to differ against the premise that Lieberman was not always the same expressed in the 'CT comment' above. I would argue that at least for the last 6 years he was the same (of course, we can go to his childhood and find out that little Joe was kind to animals, say). In fact what we have here in the arguments for Lieberman is the tone of status- quo: all is the same, we have primaries, Demparty is a powerful opposition, Lamont is better but Lieberman is OK too, etc. Nothing can be further from the truth now. It is a very different ballgame. Lieberman is harmful, dangerous, very harmful and very dangerous. He threw his very considerable political weight for the cause of the Bushists while technically being on the opposite side. That's a 'fifth column' approach. The fact that he is smart, sometimes charming and looks wise makes him even more dangerous. It was Joe who supported the Patriot Act and who was behind Bush every time Bush signed new abomination. Just imagine if Lieberman was against Bush. Situation would be much different.
The categories of 'big tent', and inclusiveness do not include the deliberate liars and people who wilfully and with malice( Lieberman's behavior surely qualifies) harm their country. I do not think Lieberman has anything to offer but harm.
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Mark Sashine (54 articles, 19 quicklinks, 252 diaries, 3605 comments)
on Monday, June 26, 2006 at 11:48:12 AM
I barely know where to start in my reply, but I am sure I will be derided as "anti-semitic." And I will repeat here a long-standing truisim: "anti-semitic" is an academic term that has been misappropriated to mean "anti-Jewish." "Jewish" is a faith, "semitic" is a race. Arabs are semitic, being "anti-Arab" could be considered being "anti-semitic." I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that Russian and Eastern European Jews (among the most powerful voting blocs in Israel), are pretty far removed from the Semites of the Mideast. Of course, they could be white Europeans and maintain their semitic genes.. I'm not sure. BUT the academics and literati (i.e. "liberal elite") have APPROPRIATED the word "anti-semitic" to mean "anti-tenants of the organized faith of Judaism," usually to mean the most aggressive tenants of that faith. Aggressive tenants of the faith (expansion of Israel, support for the Iraq war, secrecy of Israel's nuclear arsenal while condemning others for legal nuclear enrichement, etc) which define Senator Lieberman's political makeup.
But I digress! AS SOON as I read the first paragraph of Leser's defense of Lieberman, I had to wonder "Is he Jewish?" Let me explain: Al Franken is one of the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration and Republican policies. Franken is one of the very, very few nationally read commentators who is unflinching in his application of the word "Liar" to the Bush admin. and right-wing agenda. Indeed, one of Franken's books, "Lying Liars of the Right" has a picture of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, and I believe Ann Coulter on the cover. No flinching there!
Yet one of Franken's favorite guests for his Air America radio show is Howard Fineman of "Newsweek." Fineman 'won' the MediaWhoresOnline "Whore of the Year Award" at least once, and probably more than twice (if I recall - the great MWO couldn't take the heat and workload of keeping up with all the media prevaricators for Bush, and folded up shop years ago.) MWO's takedown of Fineman's reporting was amazing to behold.. he was actually more of a sychophant for the Bush admin. than either Tim Russer or even Chris Mathews (who has gushed, on other occassions, about the "manliness" of Mr. Bush, and waxed poetic about the "dignity" of said person...presumably in or out of his "Mission Accomplished" jump-suit.) Yet despite Fineman's own gushing over Bush, Franken never even notices the fawning of Fineman for Bush and the Repub. agenda. I can only guess that "blood is thicker than water", in this case culture (raised Jewish in 1960s America) is more of a binding bond for Franken and Fineman (two middle-class Jewish guys who are now just a few steps away from the top stratum of America) than their positions at roughly opposite polls on the "Bush approval spectrum."
Returning to Joe Lieberman, how does Steve Lesser account for Lieberman's being AWOL on the question of VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT in America?
How do you account for Lieberman running for SENATOR.. WHILE running for VP? Doesn't this indicate less than 100% conviction.. a candidate who doesn't completely believe in himself or his running mate? This is not an academic question, because WHERE WAS JOE during the Florida recount debacle? WHERE WAS JOE when the Black Congressional Caucus BEGGED, PLEADED, IMPLORED *ONE* Senator to sign on to the resolution that would have landed the Florida recount debacle 2000 (aka massive Republican DISENFRANCHISEMENT of minority voters) into a congressional investigation?
WHERE was Joe Lieberman in 2002, when he was PUT BACK in the chair of a Senate Committee by the courageous "defection" of Vt. Senator Jeffords from the Republican Party? That committee (govt. affairs?) under Lieberman proceeded to throw a WET BLANKET on the Enron investigation in the Senate that year (the House, of course, was controlled by Repubs), thereby ROBBING Democrats of their BEST ISSUE in 3 elections - the opportunity to TIE the Bush White House with Mr. Bush's #1. lifetime campaign donors, Enron corp. At the time, Enron execs Skilling and Lay had not been convicted. Now they have been. In short-sheeting the Senate Enron investigation, not only did Lieberman rob Democrats of their best midterm issue ever, but he also sold thousands of Enron workers, pensioners, investors, and customers down the river as well. And in doing so, he would ENABLE the Enron extortion of billions of dollars out of the California economy, with Enron's coordinated plant shut down, overloaded electrical grids, and other tactics to extort California electric consumers.
Above all, because Lieberman REFUSED to push the investigation between the Enron execs and the Bush-Cheney White House (it is almost a certainty that Enron was in on VP Cheney's "Secret Energy Task Force" in early 2001.. the one that rolled out the map of Iraq's oil fields), the Democrats have STILL failed to do so... PUBLICIZE those Enron/Ken Lay/George W. Bush/Dick Cheney links.
The above is just a "blip" of a blurb of the indictment of Sen. Lieberman's record as a "leader." Every time the Dems. get a Senator with a SAFE SEAT from which to STAND for the Democratic ideals, we always get someone who starts thinking "White House". Then they tack to 'the center' as defined by the Repubican-owned corporate media, and Presto! millions of us Dem. voters are left out in the cold, IGNORED by the Bidens and Kerrys and Hillarys and Liebermans. Biden and Lieberman, in particular, are from the states of DuPont and Insurance, respectively. They know who they take their orders from.
Mr. Lesser, this reply has taken me a minimum of an hour. One thing is certain - there is NO Democrat in the Senate speaking out FORCEFULLY against the deibolization of the US voting process; NO Senator trying to LINK President Bush with his longtime friend, Ken Lay; NO Senator trying to call attention to the Murray amendment to fund $2.7 billion for returning war veterans, and certainly Mr. Lieberman does not offer any criticism of torture, Katrina recovery missing millions (Halliburton), or Iraq missing billions. Just what part of Mr. Lieberman's record are you trying to defend?
by
verifi (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Monday, June 26, 2006 at 2:33:34 PM
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