The Kennedy Torch
It was towards the end of the campaign in 2006 and we were running well back in the polls. Bill Clinton and Karl Rove, the leaders of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- they had all lined up behind incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman. Then we received a call that Senator Ted Kennedy wanted us to join him at a rally at a senior center in Bridgeport.
When we finally got together, Kennedy's voice was hoarse from another long day on the campaign trail challenging the mindset that had mired us in Iraq and failed to provide affordable healthcare to Americans. Then, with a wry smile, he pushed me forward and announced to the assembled crowd that I would be leading them in a rousing rendition of "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." I was concerned since I couldn't sing and didn't know all the words, but Kennedy's grin just got wider and wider as he egged on the nervous soloist.
Thankfully, with Ted Kennedy, you are never on your own for long.
Later on that day, the press pool asked Sen. Kennedy to respond to Sen. Lieberman's charge that Democrats had abandoned the muscular foreign policy of John F. Kennedy (an argument he has since repeated again and again, most recently in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week). The Senator bristled that he knew something about his brother's foreign policy, that he had worked with every president since his brother held the office, and that it was George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman who had abandoned the bipartisan foreign policy tradition of our country. He clearly did not appreciate his brother's words being taken out of context.
Sen. Lieberman's latest attack on Democrats this week quotes the famous line from President Kennedy's inaugural, that the United States will "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of freedom." But rather than representing a call to arms, the words of President Kennedy's inaugural argued that America should help countries help themselves, through alliances for economic progress and a United Nations which he called "our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace." Pledging to keep our military arms "sufficient beyond doubt," in that very same speech President Kennedy called for a new civility in dealing with our adversaries, stating boldly that diplomacy was not a sign of weakness: "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."
These words are the ones which have guided our nation's bipartisan foreign policy from JFK to Nixon, from Bush I to Clinton I, and which have been cast aside by the current administration, to catastrophic effect. They are also the words that have guided Senator Obama's critique of the go-it-alone Bush-McCain-Lieberman foreign policy.
Lieberman, McCain and Bush are trying to frame the Obama-McCain foreign policy debate as a replay of Neville Chamberlain versus Winston Churchill; actually, it's more like a debate between Bush I and Bush II. Bush the Elder's foreign policy team has long expressed deep skepticism about Junior's Iraq war policy. In 2002, before the Iraq war, former Bush I National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft penned his own Wall Street Journal op-ed claiming that "an attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken." Secretary of State Powell argued famously that "you break it [Iraq], you own it" -- half a trillion dollars and tens of thousands of dead and wounded ago. More recently, James Baker's Iraq Study Group was bipartisan and unanimous in calling on America to engage in direct negotiations with Iran and Syria. (And this week, just days after President Bush told the Israeli Knesset that negotiation with enemies was tantamount to appeasement, news broke that Israel has entered into direct negotiations with Syria.)
Are these veterans of past Republican administrations the "old voices of partisanship" whom Joe Lieberman castigates? Are they the "peace at any price" opportunists somehow pulling the Democratic Party out of the historic mainstream?
Of course not.
In reality, America's allies and foreign policy establishment have been shocked to see how far President Bush and his acolytes Senators McCain and Lieberman have taken our country off course. President Truman was not afraid to use force -- but he is best remembered for NATO, the Marshall Plan, and the cold war alliance he crafted which stared down the Soviet Union. Even Winston Churchill famously said that "to jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war."
And when confronted with the prospect of actual weapons of mass destruction on our doorstep in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy balanced diplomacy, sanctions, and the threat of force to carry the day and avoid World War III.
To this day, President Kennedy's brother continues to carry the torch lit by his inaugural speech.
Senator Kennedy had a few more events that day in October 2006. As we sped our way up to Hartford, he tried to catch a break, but his aides handed him a cellphone for a Connecticut radio interview. He rallied, cranking up the vintage Kennedy accent a notch or two: "Oh, that Chris Dodd, he's just riding on his famous name," he said at full throttle. "Me, I earned it the old fashioned way."
He laughed heartily, adding later that his vote against the war in Iraq was the proudest vote he had taken in his long Senate career, and that, yes, his brother would have agreed. Then he hung up, dusted off, and bound out into the evening dusk, ready to carry the torch yet again.
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The Cuban missile crises???
The Bay of Pigs.
We had more missiles.
Nukes are why Truman got what he did.
Obama just may be be the next Dewey.
Want you to know that in 2000, CS had huge reservations about voting Gore, with Joe LieBurrNam picked as VP. We still need you to replace JoeLie so a real Democrat from CT is working to take back this country, with a Democrat in the WH. Best Wishes!
Here's a mind set to concider:
http://www
Yep: "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
What do you make of HRC's assassination gaffe? And why do SDs not take her to task for the latest serious or ridiculous, eyebrow-raising comments (from that comparison of FL/MI to Civil Rights campaigs et al.)?
Ned,
You are not forgotten. Please hang on, your time may yet come.
Thanks for this view into those times and events.
May I suggest that you look up and call Paul Hackett, here in Ohio. He had a somewhat similar but not quite the same situation. He looks to me like someone who is an up and coming guy in the Democratic Party. He is located in the Dayton, Ohio area. You and he may want to compare notes. His political career is just beginning as is yours. Paul stepped aside for a good reason. But as soon as we can get rid of Sen. Voinovich Hackett will be needed. We got rid of DeWine and Voinvoich must know he is next to go.
All the best to you.
I would've enthusiastically voted for Ned in 2006 if I was a Connecticut resident, though I'm usually iinclined to vote for the Green candidate. Lieberman's last-minute decision to switch affiliation to Independent may be legal under CT law but quite unethical for someone elected to serve her/his constituents. I was disgusted by Lieberman's extreme intellectual dishonesty throughout that race and Ned's genuine opposition to the Iraq War as well as his fiscal conservatism made him a far nobler candidate than Lieberman. Joe's innocuous claims with McCain that meeting with Mahmoud Ahmidinijad would "embolden" a "terrorist" regime make no historical sense and are disproven by myriad negotations by both Republican & Democratic Presidents over the decades. Reagan's meetings with Gorbachev to ultimately end the Cold War are a classic example of this successful strategy, while most of his foreign policy advisors tried to dissuade him from dealing with the "Evil Empire" of USSR. McCain simply wants to bury his head in the sand & pretend Obama knows nothing of international relations, based on McCain's longer service in US Senate. Obama has the wisdom & sound judgment to make these decisions in the nation's best interest.
Reagan's decsion was at the urging of Margaret Thatcher, too. Hardly an "appeaser.
Hi Ned: Good to hear you're still hanging in there. I am a old "Veteran for Ned" from your Senate campaign. Upon returning from Belize I moved to ASheville NC and am the Buncombe County - Western North Carolina co-chair for Veterans for Obama. I thank you a lot for your inspiration and activism. I believe if Barack picks Senator Dodd-well.
Hoa Binh
Tom Smith
Hang in there, Mr. Lamont, your day is coming.
HuffPost's Pick
Ned,
what a joy to see your smiling face on Huffpo.
The Lieberman WSJ piece and Biden's reply are must reading for anybody who wants to understand the difference between Obama and McCain.
I would simply add that I think Biden's article also represents a shift forward - not to the left or right - in democractic foreign policy thinking. I would go further than Biden and say that it was not 9/11 that was pivotal, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall and the failure to adjust to a new world is what has us imprisoned in and old Cold War paradigm that serves but a few interest groups in Washington.
To Mr. Lieberman: We have never had a "left" foreign policy in America, except in the inimitable style of Roosevelt, though few realized that Roosevelt was simultaneously writing a charter that would serve as America's guiding foreign policy principle in the second half of the century. With the Cold War over we have Lieberman and his crew deriding "left" foreign policy when left/right has no environment in which to exist anymore except as a false premise for a parochial agenda. That is why Bush has gone so horribly wrong in Iraq.
Obama will re-write Roosevelt's charter for the 21st century based on a collective security for the planet which leaves America free to pursue its ambitions. It is time to leave Joe LIeberman, McCain and the other Cold War phonies in the dust.
Great article Ned, I hope that the democratic margins this fall will be great enough to where we
can afford to tell Lieberman to find a new home, as I certainly do not want him in the democratic
party. I hope you run again in 2012, as I was impressed with you and your campaign.
I know many, many democrats in CT are must be really kicking themselves for voting Lieberman. While many of us saw this coming, they may have been too close to view it objectively. Name recognition, etc. counts for too much, unfortunately. Keep out there! You're the man!
Some clarification: CT Democrats did their job. Lieberman was defeated in the Democratic primary, and most Democrats (65%) voted for Lamont.
Lieberman only won CT because of Republicans, 70% of whom voted for him after abandoning their own candidate.
http://www
VOTE BY PARTY ID
Lieberman Lamont Schlesinger
Democrat (38%) 33% 65% 2%
Republican (26%) 70% 8% 21%
Independent (36%) 54% 35% 10%
Mr. Lamont:
It is ashamed you lost in your senatorial run. Lieberman does not have 1/10th of the class, intelligence or knowledge that you possess. He is an embarassment to the State of Connecticut and I am quite sorry to have him represent me.
Agreed. Lieberman's end run around the CT Dem party was an appalling act of egotism. Does he really think himself so irreplaceable that he can subvert the will of those who put him in office in the first place? The answer, evidently, is yes. He is a profound embarrassment to our beautiful, progressive little state. Try again, Ned!
I will gladly donate to the candidate that defeats Joe Imperialism. If it is you Ned, you have my support.
I second everyone's hopes that Lamont will become the next junior Senator from CT replacing Lieberman when his term expires. Lieberman will no longer be deemed electable again having conned the voters one too many times with his lies and frauds and hypocrisy.
But what's worse is a lame Senate that hasn't shown the courage to shove Lieberman out their door, stripping him of his committees and seniority for his attacks on the Democratic party and Obama, his support of McCain and Bush, and his support of Sen. Collins and his help in ginning up another war against Iran...som
My web site is and has been urging our supporters to call their Dem Senators asking them to put pressure on Harry Reid to remove Lieberman from the Democratic caucus if the Dems no longer need him to keep their majority as this is the best we can do for now. I can't imagine how anyone would allow LIEberman to be a part of the Dems while working for McCain. To me this is the height of lunacy!
RJ Crane, topplebush
Well, the reason is the numbers. There are 49 Republicans and 49 Democrats and 2 Independents (one of which is LIEberman) in the Senate. Both the Independents have chosen to caucus with the Democrats - giving them full control of the Senate.
IF the leadership kicks LIEberman to the curb (as I am sure they want to!), it goes to 50/50 - and then Dick Cheney is in charge. All the committee chairmanships become co-chairs, and what little control over the agenda is currently held by the Dems completely disappears.
SO, they bite their tongues, and pat him on the back and make nice with him.
After November, when the Dems are expected to pick up another 5-6 seats - THEN LIEberman will be outta the Dem caucus, he will be removed from any and all chairmanships he holds - and he can go play with his new buddies. Unfortunately, until then - the Dems don't have much choice.
Ned, any such thing as a "re-call" for our State? After all, the CT post has "un-endorsed" the warmonger.
The Connecticut Constitution has no provision for the recall of officials elected for federal office. [please excuse me for answering for Mr Lamont :) ]
If what you say is true, and i have no reason to believe otherwise, it sounds like it is high time to amend the Connecticut Constitution accordingly, don't you think?
Lieberman's got more than four years left in his current term -- you Connecticut Yankees need to get to work ASAP, recall Lieberman, and vote Ned Lamont in as his successor.
A modest suggestion.
Wonderful piece; thank-you for posting it. I recall a line in a book about the Kennedy White House in which JFK and Arthur Schlesinger were conversing in the Oval Office. As he looked outside at Caroline and John Jr. playing , JFK reportedly said to Schlesinger, "All war is stupid."
I have come to believe that Bush, who has shown in 8 years that he simply does not have a clue on leadership, has latched onto a fantasy that he might be more highly approved were he a wartime president. He is obsessed with WWII as though it were a novel and not a reality of history. He has even alluded to the "romantic notion of fighting." The incessant references to Chamberlain are absurd.The British were caught between a rockand a hard place. If Bush thinks he is FDR then he really needs medication. Herbert Hoover was more credible.
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