An Open Letter To Joe Lieberman

Dear Senator Lieberman,

Congratulations! You got away with it! So despite having supported and endorsed the Republican candidate for president -- and going so far as to question the patriotism of the Democratic nominee -- you've managed to keep your chairmanship. By rights, you should've been summarily ejector-seated from your committees, bonked on the head with your gavels -- cartoon-style -- and hauled from the Democratic caucus naked and on a rail whilst being pelted with wadded-up copies of your RNC address.

The aforementioned reasons for this still-lenient serving of justice fails to include the syllabus of other trespasses against you, including, first and foremost, your unwavering support for the Bush administration's unforgivable foreign policy -- a policy which has all but bankrupted our treasury and besmirched America's reputation abroad. Heckuva job, Senator!

One might be inclined to consider your conduct to date as somehow principled -- even mavericky, had it not been so transparently self-serving. Your behavior has been that of a man guided by nothing more than petty vengeance and retribution -- attention-starved opportunism not unlike grade-school instigators and gossip-mongers whose only path to relevance is to play two friends against each other. Worming your way from side to side depending on which kid or clique likes you more.

Now, I completely understand the political reasons for why President-elect Obama and the caucus ultimately chose to keep you around. Unfortunately, the Democrats need your stinky vote -- such as it is -- in order to theoretically break any future Republican filibusters. And there will be many of those to be sure. However, the closer we get to 60 votes in the caucus the better our chances of reversing the craptastical policies and legislation of your favorite Bush administration and the formerly Republican Congress.

Sure, there's no guarantee that you'll vote with the caucus, but you made it clear that you would have pitched a spasmodic, petulant fit and changed your affiliation to the Republican Party from the "Lieberman Loves Lieberman" party or whatever the hell it's called, had you been stripped of your chairmanship. Consequently, the Democratic caucus would've definitely lost your vote. It's an unenviable "possibly" versus "definitely" proposition. And with the caucus being this close to 60 against what will surely be an obstructionist Republican caucus, we have no other choice but to roll the dice with "possibly."

That is until 2010 when the Democrats will hopefully attain enough members, and thus votes, that they won't need your support anymore. Then you can storm off and mind-screw the Republicans for a couple of years until -- and it's probably not good strategy to tip our hand like this, but you know it's coming -- until you lose in 2012.

Nevertheless, you got what you wanted yesterday. Circumstances allowed you to keep your chairmanship irrespective of your weasely and contemptible maneuvering. And more than a few of us on the left actually agree with you for once: you managed to abscond off without adequate punishment.

You got away with it, despite those meddling kids, right?

Not so fast.

I submit to you, Senator Lieberman, that you were punished yesterday more than you realize. Stick with me on this. I'll explain.

I've been a supporter of the president-elect for the better part of a year now, and while I've always recognized a deep intellectualism and multilayered thoughtfulness in the man, it never fully occurred to me how he would use these strengths in a position of leadership. Until this week.

In sharp contrast to your behavior, President-elect Obama hasn't shown any predilection for pettiness or disloyalty, nor has he undermined his allies for the sake of political expedience. He's proved himself to be a man of great character. Of values. I don't need to remind anyone how he stood by Jeremiah Wright, for example, and at his own political peril when most would've tossed him overboard like political chum.

You, on the other hand, have shown an unapologetic contempt for the party that once nominated you for the vice presidency -- the party that welcomed you back to the fold even though you slipped through the system and defeated the fairly elected Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, in 2006. You've betrayed your fellow liberals to settle a political score, Senator -- in order to exact some kind of ignoble payback against your former party, against your caucus and against the netroots for merely calling you out on your literal and figurative smooching of the president.

This is behavior President-elect Obama doesn't appear to be capable of. Because he's clearly better than you. In fact, it's not difficult to hypothesize that had you possessed a fraction of his political instincts or any small measure of his morality, you would absolutely not be in this position, Senator.

See, by allowing you to keep your precious chairmanship -- by letting you off the hook -- President-elect Obama, through his political bigness, punished you without punishing you. He beat you yesterday, Senator. He beat you because he let you be you, and underscored it with his demonstrably better angels and strength of character.

In the final analysis, the hard reality is that by not choosing retribution, he made you look...

...small.

And that, Senator, is good enough for me.

Cheers!
Bob Cesca
The Huffington Post
BobCesca.com

Order my new book: One Nation Under Fear, with a foreword by Arianna Huffington. Also available in stores.

Comments

[artsandminds]

The problem with Lieberman is not his loyalties to himself, its his loyalties to Israel. Israel is the 5 billion pound gorilla (5 billion dollars is the amount of our US tax dollars that go to Israel as foreign aid, that’s about $1000/very man woman and child) in the room that no one in the media want to talk about. Joe seems mixed, somewhere between a democrat and a republican simply because when it come to the environment, social issues, trade, he can be a dem without offending Israel, but when it comes to war, principally in the Middle East, who is it that supports a hard line with Muslims, the republicans, so since that is of primary importance to Israel, that is primary importance to Joe.

So the question is not whether Joe is the problem, the question is whether it is in America’s best interest to be supporting Israel the way we do. Lieberman may be the lightning rod, but he is just the very tip of the iceberg.

[NeoLiberal]

To which country are you loyal, Senator?

[Stephen]

Great comment. Joe Lieberman's moral compass points in one direction: Israel. For decades the U.S. tried to be a biased toward Israel, but honest broker of mideast peace. Along comes George W. who announced he was going to be a "domestic President," the mideast could skin its own skunks. Nine months later all eyes were focused on the mideast. Scooter Libby's poetic note to Judith Miller when she was in the slammer about "all the invisible roots of the Aspen grove being intertwined and connected," has to make you wonder if Perle, Miller, Sulzberger, Libby, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kristol, and a host of Jewish and part Jewish, (Donald Graham), in influential places didn't hijack United States policy. Start down the list of neocons from its founders to the present and the overlap between "neocon" and "Jew" is strikng. Now will come the "antisemitic defense" to which I can only say I am not. Critical of Israel, yes. Jews I like. But American Jews need to make a choice of loyalty to one country-this one.

[vasil]

AMEN to both of You. Good ol' Joe "Loverman" had shown me only loyalty to Israel and nothing else. He used his influence only to help the Jewish cause at the expence of The American People. I knew this long time ago , and that is why I didn't vote for Gore/Lieberman ticket ( I didn't vote at all). Sharon said once: "we own America". As much money and else we've invested - it should be the other way arround !!

[polaris12]

It's more than 5 billion. The last appropriation for Israeli military hardware by the US Congress was 12 Billion dollars.

[MAH1952]

Just remember the old saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. JL is an appropriate icon for the new Republican party. He couldn't care less about the United States or whether we sink or swim.

[Torracoll]

Does somebody really believe that Joe Lie Berman is going to vote with the Democrats in important issues?
Is he going to vote in favor to end the Iraq War? Ha, ha
Is he going to vote in favor to investigate Bush actions? Ha, ha
He is a traitor.
By keeping him in the same position the Democrats made a big mistake.
Is Obama in the hands of the Jewish Lobby? The all thing smell rat to me.

[ZeusBoots]

Oh yes, we in Connecticut are chomping at the bit to eject this turncoat, out of his Senatorial seat. The day can't come soon enough. I can't tell you how angry we all are. Right now the only people who support him are the dwindling Republicans, and that won't get him a place in line let alone the job.
My fear is that he will then become a lobbyist so he can continue to suck up to the powerful and elite.
It seems to me that at the least he owes the citizens of this country the past two years of his Senatorial salary since he was not on the job. He did not spend any time representing the residents of CT, and he should give back the tax dollars!

[MNinWI]

I wonder if there isn't some provision for the citizens of CT to sue him for the salary he did not earn. The problem with those positions is that they have little accountability and the process to make them accountable is so involved and almost impossible other than to wait and vote them out.

[polaris12]

How about doing something constructive and starting a recall petition in CT?

[mngeorge]

Bob Cesca ...I think you are being expedient and dishonest. No... Joe Leiberman is a traitor to the constitution and a religious zealot and should be removed from any USA government job, elected or appointed. Joe Leiberman is a dangerous man that voted to put this nation in jeopardy...and wanted the failed policies of Bush and McCain to continue. Joe Leiberman's original support of the invasion of Iraq in behalf of the Zionists was almost tolerable since he could hide within the many seculars arguing the same. But , his turning on his party and campaigning for McCain exposed him as a bonafide religious zealot, intentionally turning on the USA and legislating in behalf of a foreign government. His actions like that of Elliot Abrams, Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz, Pletka, the Kagans and the other closet Likud Zionist Jews hiding behind the "neocon" banner showed the detrimental actions a theocrat, e.g. the worldwide Zionists will take at the expense of their national citizenship,. Lest we forget, patriots that happen to be Jewish like Russ Feingold and Al Franken are countered by Zionist zealots that are traitors to the USA. This is the same theocratic crap imposed on us by the Christian Right. A spade is spade Bob. Call it. Calling out these theocrats, in this case Zionist traitors, is not "anti-semitism"... it's recognizing the danger of theocrats, religious zealots and the need for separation of church and state.

[matthewhusseinsmith]

I agree completely with mngeorge; Cesca, dared not call a spade a spade and danced around the subject, heaping epithets on Lieberman. Lieberman, a democrat who supports Bush's war to this day, is a traitor to the United States, because he must know that this war is unpopular with 2/3 of the electorate and is harmful to the interests of the US. There is nothing wrong with a patriotic Jewish American citizen supporting Israel; but to do do at the expense of and in contradiction with the interests of the United States, is treasonous.

[madisonhack]

I think Uncle Joe's days in the Senate will be over in 2012. He'll never get re-elected as a Republican, and Democrat voters in Connecticut MUST have a clue by now. You'ld think....

[MattePgh]

Deep breath everyone.

Obviously Leebs owes Obama and we are two away from 60 blue seats. But what really what went down will only be known to a few.

Does anyone know why McCain made peace with "that one" so very soon after the election?

Do you think that they met one day before the senate caucus was to vote on poor Joe's fate was just a co-wink-e-donut?

McCain did the walk of shame to save his friend Joe the Senator.

We will never know what McCain had to pledge to Obama, but I bet it is worth it.

Who forged this deal? Raul ARI Emmanuel. The era of wimps is over

[jinjinpinti]

Spot on. Obama is the ultimate pragmatist whose each and every move has a carefully reasoned out goal. He does not indulge in emotional reasoning because he understands its price.

[FatherKindly]

Great article. I am not as goodhearted as the President-Elect. I would have consigned Lieberman to some Congressional gulag and erased his name from my memory. But, Obama is a man of character first and foremost. This display of that quality is counterpoint to Lieberman's lack of it.

[pathenry]

A-1 comment, Father Kindly.

I share your sentiments about Joe the Opportunist. I would add "integrity" to the differences between our President-Elect and the infamous Senator from Stamford.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised at Joe's duplicity over Iraq. He shares with the "chicken--hawk" neocons deferments from military service during the Viet Nam conflict.

I have lost all residual traces of respect for him after his lunatic support of the McCain-Palin ticket. We'll be watching him in the coming months. If he doesn't shape up, I'll donate to the Ned Lamont campaign, *again*.

[lbee]

Bob Cesca, you nailed it! Eloquent, luminous, dead on!! I ALMOST regretted my vote for the Gore/Lieberman ticket in 2000! What more can be said. Obama has been a true class act and Lieberman can only be...well... Lieberman.

[hipocampelofantocame]

Ibee: I fully agree with you, and thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Cesca's marvelous
column. It's political trash like Liebermann who denigrate a fair political
process in this country. I wouldn't want him representing me. Even the inept
Mr. Bush is better.

[SteveMathison]

Bravo, Bob! Well stated. I also think a humble Lieberman may be a better Lieberman for us all. I do hope he has realized the errors of his ways.

[mariemburns]

Usually it's not a good idea to post an essay when you're really angry. This column would be an exception. Good going, Cesna. As you suggest, Obama brushed Little Joe off as he would a gnat.

Unfortunately, I find I'm more like the gnat than Obama. I strongly resent the gnat & all the old gentlemen in the Senate who did his bidding. In the next election cycle, I'll be working against my Senator Bill Nelson, who was one of Lieberman's big boosters. I'm sick of the old gentlemen's club. I'm looking for some leaders with principles.

The ConstatWeader at www.RealityChex.com

[ChelseaC]

Thank You, Bob!

[maxa143]

Great piece! Mr. Liebermann has not shown any remorse perhaps for his actions. His dalliance with McCain and his rooting for Sarah Palin shows Mr. Liebermann has a petty mind.

We will anticipate the 60 senate seats for Dems then we can let go of Mr. Liebermann, who, honestly, I agree, love only himself. He wallows with the dogs that's why he looks like a dog right now.

Assuredly, he will not be the likely dog Malia and Sasha will choose to be a good and wonderful loyal companion to the WH. They are vetting the dog right now, Joe!

[Janelynne]

Lieberman hangs by a single thread waiting to make his move, simply one idiotic vote from disaster. Lieberman wants so much to be famous, wants to be the "cheese." He will kiss butt and play the tamborene for a little while. But one day something shiny will come along and catch the light just so... Let's not put our crow bars away yet.

[LOL123]

without his Israeli lobbiest friends .....the "cheese" stands alone.

[Crozier]

In the 110th Congress - House and Senate combined....there are 42 Jewish members.
The numbers in the 111th Congress is still up in the air.

PS- Both Franken (D) and Coleman (R-incumbent) are Jewish.

http://www.aipac.org/

[Crozier]

There will be 45 combined in House and Senate....."members of the tribe."

[NonLeftist]

Being a conservative, I disagree with most of the policies Lieberman has worked on but I have to admire his guts to stand up to the Looney Left Wing Radicals of the Dem party. He doesn't always tow the company line and THAT is refreshing.

[arod72]

Really? Is that why he apologized for basically everything he said on the McCain campaign trail? Dream on.

[Dog8mySk8]

I'm sure if one of yours did the same thing you would be praising his/her "guts". You a big Hagle fan, are you??

[ChelseaC]

The big difference is, Hagel has CLASS.

[goldnchyl]

Kind of like, um ... the maverick?

[Betsy Ross]

End the two party "globalist" system......and partisan politics and maybe we could see a real change in our country and government. The Constitution once again...

Expansion of globalism is not "change" American can afford, and those who put "country first," do not put the safety and security of Israel above all else, even the national security and lives of the American people.