A Politico article about “opposites attracting“.

Do they really think that Lieberman is the politically ideological opposite to McCain? Are they trying to make their readers laugh? Lieberman is so into McCain and his ilk that the brown on his nose is a permanent feature.

“Brown-nosing”

That nervous laughter you hear is the sound of party activists responding to speculation that Barack Obama or John McCain might pick a vice presidential candidate from the opposing party.

More specifically, it is reaction to talk that Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) is being seriously considered as a running mate for Barack Obama or that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, is a potential choice for John McCain.

Hagel and Lieberman, both estranged from their own parties over their stances on the war in Iraq, are often mentioned as attractive candidates for the vice presidency for precisely that reason. Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran, would offer some degree of validation to Obama’s approach to Iraq, while Lieberman would do the same for McCain, with both offering the advantage of adding an air of bipartisanship to the ticket.

From the Baltimore Sun:

A group of netroots activists plans to deliver a petition to the Capitol this morning with 43,000 signatures, asking senators to boot Joe Lieberman from his position in the Democratic caucus.

Filmaker Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films has led the petition effort, which attacks Lieberman’s record on the Iraq war. The petition calls for Lieberman to be removed from his position as chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

“We CANNOT tolerate a leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus who supports George Bush and McCain’s War in Iraq,” the states on its website. “We CANNOT tolerate a Democratic chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee who endorses and stumps for McCain. We call on the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship and his leadership role.”

Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com said that Lieberman’s view on national security and Iraq are a the far right of the political spectrum.

“He has attacked our presidential nominee; he has consistently attacked the position of our caucus,” Stoller said in a statement. “He has no standing as a Democrat, and should be stripped of his placement within the caucus. The future of Lieberman’s standing within the caucus is a litmus test for whether Democratic senators are serious about ending the war.”

Lieberman press secretary Marshall Wittman denounced the petition. He said in a statement that Lieberman will continue to put the country’s interests before partisan interests.

“Americans are tired of this type of old petty partisan politics,” Wittman said.

Lieberman irks Democrats by criticizing Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Lieberman is fast becoming the Democrats’ public enemy No. 1.

The four-term Connecticut senator, who came tantalizingly close to being Al Gore’s vice president in 2000, not only has been campaigning for his pal, presumed Republican nominee John McCain, now he’s publicly criticizing the Democrats’ standard-bearer, Barack Obama. Lieberman has strayed before, most notably switching from Democrat to independent in 2006 to hold onto his Senate seat after a Democratic primary loss. [...]

Lieberman has wasted no time in questioning Obama’s positions on Iran and Israel, two topics on which Lieberman and McCain agree. Just one day after Obama clinched his party’s nomination, Lieberman joined Republicans on a McCain campaign teleconference call assailing Obama following his foreign policy address to a leading Jewish group.

He needs to be stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, seeing how he’s a Republican. He should have been stripped in 06.

Hot off the presses from the McCain campaign, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sent out a mass email to McCain supporters announcing a new group, “Citizens for McCain,” of which Lieberman is the creator and chair. The Connecticut senator, a former Democrat, caused quite a stir yesterday, when he took part in a conference call organized by the McCain campaign. During the call, Lieberman took issue with some of Sen. Barack Obama’s remarks before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee convention in Washington. From the email:

Read more here

Hagee claims the anti-christ is gay, german and partially Jewish. And the people of Connecticut elected Joe Lieberman because??????

From Max Blumenthal:

On March 16, 2003, on the eve of the United States- invasion of Iraq, Pastor John Hagee took to the pulpit to warn of the coming Antichrist. In his sermon, “The Final Dictator,” Hagee described the Antichrist as a seductive figure with “fierce features.” He will be “a blasphemer and a homosexual,” the pastor announced. Then, Hagee boomed, “There’s a phrase in Scripture used solely to identify the Jewish people. It suggests that this man [the Antichrist] is at least going to be partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler, as was Karl Marx.”

I know this is old news, but it can’t be stressed enough that, even though the good people of Connecticut are for the most part progressive and “with it”, they can make some seriously fucked-up, colossal mistakes at the voting booths too!

Case in point:

Joseph Lieberman To Headline Upcoming Pastor Hagee Summit

Senator Joseph Lieberman is scheduled to headline Pastor John Hagee’s 2008 Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit this July 22. In accepting Hagee’s invitation, Lieberman became the most senior elected representative confirmed to appear at the annual gala. Last year, when Lieberman spoke at Hagee’s summit, he compared the Texas televangelist to the biblical prophet Moses, dubbing him “an Ish Elochim,” or “a man of God.” Unless he rescinds his pledge to appear at this year’s summit, Lieberman can be expected to deliver another soul’stirring tribute.

Hagee’s vitriolic condemnation of Catholicism, his jeremiad declaring Hurricane Katrina divine punishment for New Orleans’ hosting of a “homosexual rally,” and his generally disturbing apocalyptic theology became national news last February when John McCain accepted his endorsement in a widely publicized ceremony.

McCain has finally denounced Hagee. Lieberman, on the other hand, is on his back licking the pastor’s hairy, low-hanging ball sack. Does this mean Lieberman will probably not be asked to fill the VP slot? Oh, he may still be asked. After all, “Republican” is not synonymous with having scruples.

From Credoaction:

Landmark global warming legislation is in danger of being hijacked by Senator John McCain.

Senator McCain has made it known that he would support the “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act” if specific nuclear subsidies were added.1

Now his friend and supporter Sen. Joe Lieberman has done just that — floated an amendment to the global warming bill2 that would take funds away from clean energy sources like wind and solar and earmark them for the nuclear power industry.

As it stands, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is already woefully inadequate to meet the challenges presented by global warming. It does not currently call for 80 percent carbon reductions by 2050. And it is likely to give away emissions permits to polluters rather than auctioning them off to generate proceeds for clean energy initiatives.

An already weak bill is about to get much, much worse. Tell your senator that enough is enough. We can’t let global warming legislation be hijacked by Sen. John McCain and turned into a vehicle for subsidizing the nuclear power industry.

Sign petition here

Liebermann has a commentary in the Wall Street Journal today bashing the Democratic party.

So are you saying today’s Democratic party is NOT pro-American. Democrats need to do something about this asshole and tell him to shut his piehole and join the Republican party.

Full article at the WSJ

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on CNN’s Late Edition, May 11, 2008,  attempting to plant fear in voter’s minds about Obama.   This is sickening.  

 

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

From ThinkProgress:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for president, will be disqualified as a superdelegate at the Democratic convention “under what is informally known as the Zell Miller rule.” In 2004, Miller - then a Democratic senator from Georgia - attacked Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in a speech at the Republican National Convention. The DNC “responded with a rule disqualifying any Democrat who crosses the aisle from being a super delegate.”

…You will be now!

LIEberman, recognized as a “senior democrat”, is wrong. And is further proof that Pelosi and Reid both need to be shown the door!

Lieberman to endorse McCain

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Sen. John McCain, trying to build momentum toward a reprise of his 2000 New Hampshire primary victory, is piling up high-profile endorsements, including one from another political maverick, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

The Connecticut senator, an independent who was the Democrats’ 2000 vice presidential nominee, was scheduled to announce his support for McCain at a town hall meeting Monday morning in Hillsborough.

A Lieberman adviser said the senator decided to back McCain despite being a Republican because he believes his colleague from Arizona “has the best chance of uniting the country in its fight against Islamic terrorism.”

The adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the formal announcement, said Lieberman would continue to caucus with Senate Democrats, and said his decision was not a reflection of any lingering tension with his old party after high-profile Democrats abandoned him when he lost the Democratic primary during his 2006 Senate re-election campaign.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) writes today in the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. “road to victory” in Iraq goes through Damascus, and urges Congress to “send a clear and unambiguous message to the Syrian regime”:

The United States is at last making significant progress against al Qaeda in Iraq-but the road to victory now requires cutting off al Qaeda’s road to Iraq through Damascus. […]

It is therefore time to demand that the Syrian regime stop playing travel agent for al Qaeda in Iraq.

When Congress reconvenes next month, we should set aside whatever differences divide us on Iraq and send a clear and unambiguous message to the Syrian regime, as we did last month to the Iranian regime, that the transit of al Qaeda suicide bombers through Syria on their way to Iraq is completely unacceptable, and it must stop.

More at Think Progress

By Walter Shapiro
from SALON.COM

In a Salon interview, the super-hawk senator talks about his “liberation” from the Democratic Party, John McCain’s campaign nosedive, and why Clinton, Obama and the other Dems are wrong on Iraq.

It may have been collateral damage, but the fiery end to Joe Lieberman’s political career as an orthodox Democrat ranks among the most dramatic casualties of the Iraq war on the home front. A year ago this week, Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, lost a high-voltage Senate primary race in Connecticut to antiwar challenger Ned Lamont. But then running as an independent in the general election, Lieberman, an unstinting champion of the war, romped home to his fourth Senate term.

The national 2006 Democratic sweep left Lieberman, who now calls himself an Independent Democrat, as the ultimate swing vote in the narrowly divided Senate. By choosing to caucus with the Democrats, Lieberman, in effect, elected Harry Reid as Senate majority leader. But even as Lieberman continues to vote with the Democrats on most domestic legislation, he has been moving steadily away from any identification with the party, saying that he might not endorse the party’s 2008 presidential nominee and refusing to categorically rule out someday becoming a Republican.

Wednesday afternoon, Salon interviewed Lieberman in his Senate office. Sitting in an armchair with his suit jacket off, tapping his right foot for emphasis, Lieberman reveled in his status as the most independent man in the Senate. (The interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.)

It is almost a year to the day since you lost the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary to Ned Lamont and filed for reelection as an independent. Are you happier now politically then you were as a Democrat?

We joke about “Liberation Day” [the day he filed as an independent], but there’s a lot of seriousness to it. I have felt liberated. It’s interesting because I have always felt that I was an independent-minded senator. It was in part what got me into the difficulty I was in among my fellow Democrats about Iraq.

There is no question that I have felt totally liberated and have enjoyed the freedom that came in some sense because the Connecticut Democrats who voted in the primary last year gave me my release by refusing to renominate me.

read more HERE

As if his backing is going to swing the election either way. - JS

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent who supports Democrats in Congress despite his backing of the Iraq war, said on Thursday he was not ruling out endorsing a Republican in the White House race.

The 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate said he also wants to see if an independent enters the crowded field of 2008 presidential hopefuls.

“I’m going to chose whichever candidate that I think will do the best job for our country, regardless of the party affiliation of that candidate. I’m not going to get involved until after both parties have their presumptive nominees and, frankly, to see if there is a strong independent candidate,” he said.

Lieberman was re-elected to a fourth Senate term in November as an independent in Connecticut.

Many Democrats last year abandoned Lieberman in favor of his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, a millionaire and political outsider who ran on an anti-Iraq-war platform focused on public discontent over President George W. Bush’s policies.

“There’s a lot on the line both in terms of the terrorist threat that we face but also all the things here at home that seem broken: our health-care system, our education system, the environmental problems we have,” he said.

by Steve Kornacki
The New York Observer

Early last week, a distressing, if not entirely unsurprising, Newsweek poll found that fully 40 percent of American adults continue to believe that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks.

It must, then, have been this exasperating chunk of the electorate that Joe Lieberman had in mind when he declared Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Democrats are doomed in the 2008 presidential race unless they re-embrace the Iraq War.

“I think that’s the best tradition of our party, and if we don-t recapture it … the Democratic candidate is going to have a hard time winning that election next year,” Mr. Lieberman said, likening his own hawkish Iraq posture to Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and Henry “Scoop” Jackson - all of them much too deceased to protest such a questionable comparison.

And if losing to the Republicans isn-t enough, Mr. Lieberman also made clear that any Democratic nominee who favors “retreat” risks losing his personal endorsement. After offering praise for Republicans John McCain and Rudy Giuliani for showing independence from their party’s base (and conveniently ignoring the abuse Ron Paul has suffered from the G.O.P. establishment for his war opposition), Connecticut’s junior Senator told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “It does seem to me now that the leading Democratic candidates for President are competing with each other to see which one can more quickly pull more of our troops out of Iraq, while our troops are there fighting and now succeeding with a lot on the line for the future security of the United States of America.”

In truth, the front-running Democratic candidates, all of whom favor a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, are doing just fine ignoring Mr. Lieberman’s electoral prescription. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all generally hold leads over the most likely Republican nominees. Moreover, surveys show that voters lopsidedly prefer a generic, unnamed Democrat to an unnamed Republican for President. With President Bush’s approval ratings in the toilet, thanks almost entirely to Iraq, the next election is the Democrats- to lose.

In all, Mr. Lieberman’s “This Week” appearance lasted about 11 minutes, and if anything became clear in that time it’s that his influence over the national political debate is waning - a decline that not many foresaw last November, when Connecticut’s voters returned him to the Senate, prompting talk that a new power-broker, coveted equally by both parties, had been born.

read more at The New York Observer