archived: 8 - 14 Jun, 2008         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  JUN 11, 2008 

“DEAR JOE LIEBERMAN” 

   Joe Lieberman does manage to stay in the news, doesn’t he?  Back on May 21, 2008, he had an article in the Wall Street Journal in which he clobbered current Democrats as lily-livered sissies for not supporting the Bush/McCain policy of no talks/no place/no how with any one they don’t like, or least don’t want to talk to for domestic political reasons  (No one ever accused Bush of liking either the North Koreans or the Libyans and he did talk with them, but don’t pay that no never mind.)  Back in February of this year, there was a very nice puff piece on the Senator from AIPAC in The New York Times  ).  It discussed in part the McCain/Lieberman link.  However, it didn’t mention one odd fact about it.  It has been surmised in some quarters that Lieberman was/is still angling/being-considered-for the Vice-Presidential nod on a ticket headed by McCain.  Unfortunately for Lieberman (perhaps poor Joe is unaware of the fact), McCain has previously declared that he did not regard non-Christians as qualified to govern (The Progress Report, "Blackout and Brownout," Oct. 1, 2007). 

   Oh gosh, I guess while he is riding around on the “Straight Talk Express” Gentleman Johnny should read up on the Constitution.  So let’s hear it for poor disqualified Joe, who according to the McCain Doctrine on qualifications to govern, would be disqualified even from holding a cabinet post in a McCain Administration (heaven forefend) as well from holding elective office. Article VI does state, pretty straight-forwardly, that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”  However, it seems that the fact that McCain, if not the Constitution, has disqualified Lieberman for public office has not prevented Sen. Joe from frequently appearing with “his dear friend” at McCain campaign events.  And people spend their time psychoanalyzing Bush and Clinton (either one).

   But Joe’s significance goes far beyond supporting a man who is everso-unlikely to win the Presidency (that is unless the Democratic nominee is one who can unite the Republican Party in a way that McCain seems to be having a hard time doing).  This is what makes Joe tick: the fact that it his vote that stands between the Democrats and being in the Minority in the Senate.  This despite the fact that he disagrees with the Democrats on most major issues: peace in the Muslim Middle East, coming up with some reasonable solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict, joining “Bomb, bomb, bomb Eeer-rahn John” on something core Democrats totally oppose, supporting the Georgite policy of doing nothing serious to improve Homeland Security while frightening the beejesus out of the US population at convenient times. Ol’ Joe is the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee --- ever hear of anything he’s ever done to hold accountable what by all accounts is the worst-run, poorest functioning of all the badly run Federal Departments Bush has managed to run into the ground, and so on and so forth. 

   But Lieberman holds the balance of power in the Senate in his hot little hands.  This is where his power comes from and he is the most important reason the Republican (we’ll-filibuster-everything-and-anything-you-want-to-do-just-to-make-you-look-bad) minority has all of the authority in the Senate with none of the responsibility.  There were those of us who were thrilled when Lieberman decided to vote with the Democrats to organize the Senate because we thought that they would then go on an investigations rampage.  We knew there wouldn’t be much in the way of legislation because of the Republican minority and the filibuster and Bush and vetoes and Signing Statements.  But nothing much has happened on the investigation side either.  Indeed, we have been entirely disappointed. 

   But now, finally, comes along a Democrat who is willing to take Lieberman to task, regardless of his swing position in the Senate.  For here on the pages of the same Wall Street Journal (so you think that all Murdoch editorial polices are malevolent, eh?) comes another Sen. Joe, Biden of Delaware).  And boy, did he come out swinging.  What he said should be at the heart of the Democratic attack on Bush/McCain foreign policy in the upcoming Presidential campaign.  I am much encouraged that Sen. Obama, the likely nominee, has gone onto the “attack on defense” mode that I have advocated for quite some time (see for example my TPJ column No. 149, May 16, 2007).  Sen. Biden gives it full throat.

   He said:  “At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the ‘war on terrorism’ that ignores larger forces shaping the world: the emergence of China, India, Russia and Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water; the persistence of poverty; ethnic animosities and state failures; a rapidly warming planet; the challenge to nation states from above and below.  Instead, Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make. . . . Terrorism is a means, not an end [as I have noted periodically, one general characterized the ‘War on Terror’ as the ‘War on Flanking Maneuvers’] . . . . On George Bush's watch, Iran, not freedom, has been on the march . . . the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 . . . are stronger now than at any time since 9/11. Radical recruitment is on the rise. Hamas controls Gaza and launches rockets at Israel every day. Some 140,000 American troops remain stuck in Iraq with no end in sight.”

   And the McCain/Lieberman “solution?”  Why more of the same, of course.  In a recent article) the well-known Middle East observer Patrick Seale also went over the litany of failures of the BushCheney and now McCain/Lieberman policies: “the bitter Arab anger aroused by America’s unfailing military, financial ,and diplomatic support for Israel . . . Cheney’s eye on Iraq’s oil and on the multi-billion dollar contracts American firms like Halliburton could hope to win for rebuilding Iraq’s dilapidated infrastructure . . . [the] drive to ‘reform’ Arab society . . . . Bush has turned [the US] into a malevolent hegemon, exacerbating conflicts and spreading chaos and death.  Instead of recognising his failure in Iraq early on, and bringing the war to a speedy end, Bush has ploughed on, at enormous cost to the U.S. armed services and to U.S. public finances -- and, of course, to Iraq itself, now a broken and divided ‘failed state’, a fifth of whose wretched population has either fled abroad or been internally displaced. An immediate consequence of destroying Iraq has been to enhance Iran’s regional power.”  And so on, and so forth, as per Biden, and in more muted tones, Obama.

   But, finally, let us stop to consider that possibly the picture of the Middle East sketched by Mr. Seale and Sen. Biden and many others perhaps does not represent failure.  Rather, it perhaps represents success, for Bush and McCain and now Lieberman.  For how would these forces, the Georgites as I call them, possibly retain their power in the US, without, as I have previously characterized it, Permanent War (SJ TPJ No. 142, 3-21-07)?  In my view, more and more, as the Georgites push on with their policies, now joined by politicians who originally were not of that mind; this is exactly what they have in mind.  And why?  For in no other way can they stay in power.  Other than on ad hominem arguments, they have nothing to run on but fear and hatred, summarized on the campaign trail by “Terrorism,” “and Islamofascism.”  I will further say here that if by October the polls indicate that that electoral strategy is not working, the Georgites (although in this case likely not having either Lieberman or McCain privy to the plans) may very well turn to an attempt by, shall we say, extra-Constitutional means, to retain power for themselves.  It has occurred to me that all that talk of invading/”obliterating” Iran which has appeared on a regular basis for the past two years is nothing but a diversion from where the next assault may well be: right here at home.  Blackshirts (otherwise in our nation known as Blackwater) anyone?

   Ah Joe.  If that does occur, after it’s all over, either quickly or after years of fascist repression, you will then have to answer: whatever did happen to that young political figure who first started out as an outspoken leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Connecticut)?  Did collaboration with the forces of darkness really feel that good, Joe?  Or did they just pay that well.

This column is based in part on “Dr. J.'s Commentary: What Makes Joe Lieberman Tick ?,” which appeared on BuzzFlash on Fri, 02/22/2008,  http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/jonas/103

________________