My Favorite Democrat
Joe Lieberman, that is, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November’s elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America’s bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
That’s it in a nutshell. Senator Lieberman, thank you…
UPDATE 8:24 a.m.: Much more on this from Academic Elephant…
I just stopped over to pass along the link to this piece–it’s stunning. Great minds clearly think alike this morning! http://elephantsinacademia.blogspot.com/2005/11/man-of-moment.html
Sadly, Joe Lieberman will not be rewarded for his clarity of vision and strength of political character, in fact, I fear he will be vilified and ostracized. Fortunately, that reality has never kept him from doing and saying the right thing.
This is the end of the democrats drive to bring Bush down with Iraq.
IN dragging Bush down successfully, they have achieved lower approval ratings, than their object of animosity.
The word is out that Bush’s speech at annapolis may deliver a vision of the end of our presense. Dems like Biden will go running to the cameras afterwards, with quotes like:
“Finally the President is listening to the American People…”
“This is markedly similar to the democratic plan…”
yadda-yadda.
It will make for a nice commercial, but democratic crediblity on on foreign policy has been spent-if they had any before. The MSM will lose its closest ally in fighting Bush over Iraq-the dems are more than willing to call the action successful if it might suggest they have some foreign policy ability in stating the obvious. To continue to suggest it is failing in the face of a draw down threatens to repeat the mistakes made during GW I. (The dems were so wrong in 91, that Biden and Kerry actually were in favor of this recent conflict.)
They don’t have a clue.
Don’t be so down on Lieberman-he has tied himself to the approval for the War, which interestingly exceeds approval for both parties in congress, and is also in step with Bush’s approval ratings.
As the end draws to close, opinion regarding this matter will drastically change, and bouy Bush and Lieberman. The vagueness that was exploited by the democrats, reagrding length of deployment, the loss of soldiers lives, and the financial cost is beginning to dissipate. Without the ‘vagueness’ to augment the democratic argument against the war and the purpose of our remaining beyond the removal of Saddam, the fog will soon fade…
Bush and Lieberman will both be standing tall. Kerry and Biden will be given the choice of praising what has been done, or discounting it. The former will expose their hypocrisy, the latter would be political suicide.
The campaign commerical for 06?
Every quote by every dem which includes the words- losing, unwinnable, failure…
followed by the video of the Parade of returning vets, closing with the statements of the newly elected President of Iraq thanking us for giving their country a chance.
The world will turn to Iraq and begin to treat them as a real sovereign Country, or lose the potential for trade. Even the world will be embracing the end of the conflict, along with the newly formed government, giving Iraq (and our actions), its final legitimacy.
I prefer your optimism to my pessimism.
too many steves, I’ve often said Lieberman should just come on over to the Republicans…the invitation still stands…
Not Playing the Party Line
How have Congressional Democrats not found a way to muzzle the last remaining sane voice in the Democratic caucus? He, alone among Senior Democrats, gets it. And he even notices the media bias…
Mark, would the GOP even have Lieberman? For all the disrespect that gets heaped upon the moderate crew, Lieberman would probably be far to their left in the party. I would love to have him, but I don’t think the GOP is particularly open-minded.
It’s a good question…I think they would, even if only for the PR victory of having a prominent Democrat switch…
What I appreciate most about Lieberman (and Warner, it seems) is the straightforward and honest nature of his approach to most matters. By straightforward I mean that he has a point of view that he articulates and for which he makes reasoned arguments. Even when I think he is wrong he strikes me as genuinely believing his position is right – rather than trying to make some calculated and partisan political move.
I have to respect a person that behaves this way.
He would be welcomed with open arms. How much better a senator is Lieberman than, say Chaffee or Specter? In my opinion he would dress the place up.
Speaking of Specter this just crossed my desk–jeez–are there no depths to which he will not sink? Oh please, Joe Lieberman, move to Pennsylvania and become a Republican and we will all vote for you. Rid us of this menace.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051129/ap_on_sp_fo_ne/fbn_owens_specter
Joe-mentum, baby!!!
Click, click, boom!
Wonder if he’ll get a standing O from the Senate Democrats like Rep. Murtha did?
…
Does the effusive praise for Lieberman mean that he is a DINO?
Or is he the present day custodian of the Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic party?
Hey, DINO, meet RINO – I’ve been accused of mushiness myself, so we make a good team…but for the record, I loved Lieberman before there was an Iraq war…to me, he is the exemplar of a reasonable, principled statesman…
I agree — also (like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter) he goes against the perception that there are no people of faith at the top of the Democratic party –