Poor Joe Lieberman. He was born with a silver tea-spoon in his mouth. Ok, I suppose that is a lame effort to paraphrase a quote from the late Anne Richards, who was the governor of Texas before Dubya. But, Lieberman is truly caught in the middle these days. He is the scorn of the far-left, the far-right (he has was mentioned in the blog guntotingliberal.com) and even here at Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time (I suppose one can say we are center-left since we are occasionally nice to Republicans, but not lately.....!).
Lieberman further isolated himself with last night's speech at the Republican Convention in Minnesota. The lukewarm reception he got made me realize how I would be greeted if I were to speak at a partisan Armenian-American luncheon (I'm half-Turkish) in Glendale, Calif., which has the largest Armenian population in America.
The Republican Convention was also striking because I noticed that there were about 592 guys there who looked like respected conservative pundit George F. Will, whom I respectfully disagree with most of the time (though he has said many negative things about El Presidente).
Lieberman also went out of his way to say that he is not 'Michael Moore's favorite Democrat.' Moore responded on his web site by saying:
"This is very confusing. I was in the middle of taking out the garbage and, all of a sudden, there you (Lieberman) were trash-talking me in front of thousands of cheering (mostly) white people on tv.""The Washington Post" columnist Ben Pershing reported that that Lieberman gave $5,000 to John McCain's campaign, but he also decided to help out his 'fellow Democratic senator' Joe Biden by giving him $5,000 to help get him out of the debt Biden mounted from his own presidential bid. The irony is that now Biden is Barack Obama's running mate. Boy, this man can't win can he?!
The other striking thing about Lieberman's appearance last night was just how unmoving his speech was. In fact, he looked like Droopy Dog. With all that 'enthusiasm,' for McCain, I'm thinking his endorsement of the Arizona senator may not make such a difference after all_ though he would have still made a better running mate than Sarah Palin (yes, we're still laughing!).Perhaps, 'Cathy,' who posted this message on a "Washington Post" board sums it up best, as she refers to the misinformation that Lieberman used in his speech about Obama voting against funding troops in Iraq which was cited in a fact-checker story by the "Post:"
"At this point, Lieberman doesn't care about the truth. He is out to get revenge on the Democrats and see McCain as the great protector of Israel. I'm all for supporting Israel, but a 72 year old sociopath and a beauty queen is not the way to go."
(This video is of the 1958 Droopy Dog cartoon "Mutts About Racing").
I was actually one of the few Democrats who sympathized with Lieberman, not for his dubious support of the Iraq War which is not going to bring 'peace and democracy' to the Middle East. But, for the simple reason, that anyone who looks at politics with remote objectivity will at some point in life greatly differ from the orthodoxy of their chosen political party.
In fact, it happened to me just last year with Nancy Pelosi's controversial bill to have Congress recognize the Armenian Genocide, which would have caused enormous diplomatic problems between Turkey and Washington. The fact that both Obama and Hillary Clinton supported this proposal put me in the proverbial pickle jar.
But, ultimately, the reality is that the Republican Party, with notable exceptions, is a far-right movement not concerned with ordinary Americans unless they belong to the NRA or the Christian Coalition (two groups I disdain). And, with the exception of some good ole boy politician like Mike Huckabee or Fred Thomspon, the party usually forgets about the guns and fetus voters after the election cycle or they merely take them for granted. The reason why Democrats are winning in Congress is not merely because of Bush, but also because it is the party that is more connected to its base.
One can only hope Lieberman, irregardless of his friendship with McCain, realizes that for himself as well. The RepublicanParty today is not the party of Barry Goldwater.
It is the party of George W. Bush, and it is time for a change.
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