Despite speaking at the G.O.P. convention and actively campaigning for Republican John McCain, Senate Democrats will allow Joe Liebermann will keep his position as Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committe. [Politico]
Fightin’ Joe Lieberman Lives to Fight Another Day
Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...
We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?
Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated
fredo777
Why???
I saw that writing on the wall at HuffPo, but I didn’t really click through to any of the articles.
His face made me sick enough to look at.
Joe Moag
Too damn bad. I wanted his ass on a stick. Robespierre knew how to deal with these types…(see http://www.flamingpolitics.com)
walt zipprian
He must swallow.
Darth Paul
@Joe Moag: No worries. I have a pulsa denura for that ass…
Ethan
New they didnt have the balls to do it…
Eminent Victorian
Spineless.
Anarchos
This is bullshit. Castrate him.
Bill Perdue
One more sign, and by my count this is No. 8,327, that the Democrats are moving to the right as fast as their little pigsfeet will carry them.
The Democrats allemande right is being choreographed by a superstition driven opponent of same sex marriage named Obama. After a year of so of pandering to bigots starting with his tent revivals meetings featuring bigoted scum like the Most Rev. Donnie McKlurkin and MaryMary Obama trashed our chances of beating Prop 8 by shouting over and over that “god’s in the mixâ€. The bigots heard him and came out in droves.
People who support Democrats or Republicans oppose GLBT rights.
Joe Moag
@Bill Perdue: Yes, single-issue voting, that’s how you change the world for the better.
Scott Berwitz
Wow…what a disgusting person Joe Lieberman is. Sure, he’s an immensely accomplished politician and a lifelong Democrat. But he did something unforgivable to those who value partisanship rather than principle…he followed his principles instead of sticking to the party line even if it brought him to some pretty unpopular territory. Doesn’t he know that you are never supposed to break line with your party? Doesn’t get that it’s party loyalty – not intellectual debate and critical thought that is most important? Damn is he lucky that the Democrats “let him” stick around. I mean, what business does a smart, accomplished, principled, non-partisan guy have in politics?
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: Yes, really principled, that guy. Like when he swore he would never speak at the GOP Convention, then did. Or when he swore he would not campaign negatively against Obama, then, in Florida, he did over and over.
Yes, we need many more principled men like Lieberman. Why, those principles are so strong, that he decided, after a free and fair election in CT in which voters dumped him because of his “principles”, that the voters were fucked in the head and that he would run as an Independent, thus keeping his nice, cushy job.
Yes, we need a man of courage, like Joe Lieberman.
fredo777
@Scott Berwitz:
Don’t sugar-coat it. He’s a total traitor to his party + opportunist.
Scott Berwitz
Again – how dare he go with his principles. He spoke at a convention. He campaigned with the guy he supported, not the easy candidate, not the one his party supported, not the one that would get him invites to all the right social functions. And a politician who lost fair and square who decided to run again fair and square. Unthinkable!
“he’s a total traitor to his party.” Lest one think that the main problem the left has with him is his ability to think for himself.
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: Well, you sure got a lock on his jock, don’t you?
Bill Perdue
@Joe Moag: how silly of you to imagine that elections can be used to create real change. If that were true they’d be outlawed.
Activists like me oppose Obama because he’s a bigot, because he’s a lap dog for Wall Street and because he plans to continue the war from Palestine to Pakistan.
Presumably those are the same reasons why apologists support him. AM I right, Joe?
Scott Berwitz
Joe –
Very clever.
Joe Moag
@Bill Perdue: Well, ofcourse you are right, commrade! It’s Obama-supporting bigots like me and my boyfriend that are the problem, not highly effective bitter doctrinaires like you…
Bill Perdue
You have a bf? Poor guy.
Thanks for confirming.
fredo777
@Scott Berwitz:
“Joe –
Very clever.”
You have to admit, though, you are riding Lieberman’s nuts pretty hard. I mean, come on. Seriously.
fredo777
Also, while there is something to be said for respecting individual thought, there is also something to be said for loyalty.
Joe Moag
The Democratic Party is a political party. The Republican Party is a political party. These are not sock hops or tea dances. These are organizations with rules. They, like any other organization, has the right – and the duty – to set rules and enforce rules. If you don’t like it, then don’t join it. Lieberman wants to be an “Independent”, to be unaffiliated? Fine. Then don’t shit and bitch and moan if the party tells you to take a hike.
For someone that has spent decades – like Lieberman did – benefitting IMMENSELY from that party affiliation – to turn around and act “shocked, just shocked” that there is such a thing as a political party and it has rules is total bullshit.
Now, if the Dems want to be bigger about this than I would, that’s their choice. But don’t give me some high and mighty “principles” crap. Parties have principles as well, and enforcing rules is part and parcel of them.
Scott Berwitz
Joe –
Political parties are groups of people trying to retain and gain power. They don’t exactly function as dictatorship. They are also supposed be a collecation of free-thinking people in a democracy, not a bunch of groupthink followers walking in lockstep for fear of being excommunicated. Lieberman has done plenty of things of for the Democratic party as well – over many years. Crack as many homoerotic statements as you like, my regard for him is because he is what I wish all politicans would be – even if I disagree with him a lot. He follows his principles and pays no attention to the hardline partisans who place party loyalty above independent thought. Good for him. It’s as anti-intellectual as it is just plain dumb to place party loyalty above objectivity – and I will happily debate that point with anyone who thinks otherwise. I hope there are very few.
bobito
It isn’t Lieberman’s ‘principled disloyalty’ that is the problem. The problem is Joe’s loyalty over the past several years to the Bush doctrine of permanent war in the Mideast, and his loyalty to Bush himself, for that matter. As chairman of the Senate oversight committee for homeland security, Lieberman decided that Bush’s heinous criminal negligence during Hurricane Katrina did not warrant investigation. So Scott, it’s not at all the problem that he “thinks for himself”, the problem is who he lets do the thinking for him.
Lieberman needs to be gone, the sooner the better.
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: Well, guess what? The Dems didn’t behave as a “dictatorship” and have left your boyfriend in the caucus and with a committee.
But don’t tell me that it is principled for a 4 decade partisan – like Lieberman – to walk away from the party, stating that “the party has left me”, but it is not principled for that same party to, in turn, walk away from him, saying that “he has left the party”.
If it’s principles that you find so compelling in all of this (and not the clear and obvious power calculations that Lieberman made 1st when he ran as an Independent in CT then 2nd when he backed the wrong horse in the election), then why don’t you laud the Dems for contemplating applying a principled response to Lieberman by kicking his ass to the curb?
fredo777
@Scott Berwitz:
Feh.
The dude’s a weasel. Bad for him.
Scott Berwitz
Joe –
If the principle for Joe is that he is following what he truly believes even if it costs him the favor of those who used to be political allies, I admire it. If the principle for the Democrat party is that anyone who doesn’t follow them in lockstep should be kicked to the curb, I abhor it. I am sorry you don’t understand the difference.
Scott Berwitz
Bobito –
You may disagree with his stances, I disagree with some of his as well. But I like the idea that he took a stance…he didn’t pipe down and take the easier route. Bush is an immensely unpopular president – the idea that he was suddenly looking for a master that would put his own political future in peril does not shake out.
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: Your boyfriend was just on the news retracting a series of statements that he made about Obama during the campaign. And then he apologized for those comments.
Ah, such courage. Such prinicples. And now, back to his seat of power. But he never was really interested in political power, was he?
Scott Berwitz
Joe –
Let me ask you a question: would you be so hot on someone who spoke ill of McCain – even if they said they wouldn’t make a negative statement about a candidate? No. And how many politicians who go back on their word not to campaign negatively (like both Obama and McCain) apologized for it?
You’re welcome to support any groupthink idiocy you like.
Give me a break, man…you’re gripping at straws now.
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: So let me get this straight:
Lieberman is a man of principles because he told the voters of CT to get lost after they told him to get lost and ran as a “Independent Democrat” so that he could get back into the Senate. And, upon getting there, he promised on a series of occassions, that he would be a Democrat, and to do a series of things as a Democrat, all so that he could retain his chairmanship. Then, he goes back on specific, publicly made promises, after having convinced the Dems that he wouldn’t and so late in the election cycle that they couldn’t strip him of his chair. Then, after he convinces the Dems that he will, YET AGAIN, be good, and APOLOGIZES AND RETRACTS a bunch of the shit he was so proud of 3 weeks ago (so that he can get a seat of power which you are so sure that HE is ABOVE), we are supposed to sit around with lubed up hard-ons for him, as you do?
Am I getting you correctly on all of this?
You know, there actually have been Senators who acted out of principle when it comes to party alignment. There have been Senators who wanted to switch parties and loyalties and stepped down to run as a candidate on their new principles.
Grip on them straws…
Scott Berwitz
Joe:
Lieberman had been elected and re-elected by CT numerous times. The only reason why his bid was in any peril at all is because he was hawkish on the war and on foreign policy, sided with the Republicans. That was not a politically advantageous position for him to have – and Ned Lamont – a rich kid idiot – took his spot. Now you’re painting Lieberman as playing the Democratic party to get what he wants. When the only reason why his politial spot was threatened is because he took positions that he believed in but knew were unpopular in heavily blue state.
As far as “lubed up hard-ons” – you seem to be the only one to have it.
Give me a break with party loyalty shit. We should all be free thinking individuals who put what is right above party loyalty. What immature bullshit, Joe. If you want “loyalty”, go to Iran where such “loyalty” is enforced. Everyone’s loyalty should be to the truth and to what is right, not to a collection of people trying to get power.
There is something seriously wrong with your priorities, Joe. You’re too dumb to see it and too ignorant to question it.
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: How funny that you mention Iran when telling me to fuck off, and how telling. You could have said any dictatorship on the planet – like, oh, CHINA? – but somehow, somehow you came up with Iran.
Now, I think, we are really getting at your love-in for Lieberman, aren’t we?
It’s all about protecting Israel, putting Israel 1st, CT 2nd, the U.S. 3rd and the Democratic party can just fuck off. It’s all about Lieberman’s desire to use the American military to do Israel’s bidding, 1st in Iraq, then Iran, then Syria, down the list.
Typical neo-con bullshit. Now I get you. I’m sure that Lieberman’s stance in all of this is a real mitzvah in your mind, however, I refer you to Darth Paul’s comments above, as I think that is what Lieberman deserves from all of this.
So go ahead, Scott. Respond by calling me an anti-Semite. That’s next in your playbook, isn’t it?
Scott Berwitz
Wow, Joe. Someone awoke the beast. You got all that at the mere mention of Iran – where loyalty is necessary for survival and free thought is, shall we say, discouraged?
Now, I don’t think you are anti-semite Joe, at least from nothing you’ve written here. Sure, I probably could have done without the mitzvah statement, or the anti-Israel tirade you suddenly went on that could have come straight from moveon.org or from Chavez, but, like I said, you are welcome to buy into any group-think idiocy you like.
And I would like to say how intellectually honest it is of you to further propulgate the notion that the world’s lone superpower is at the behest of Israel…doing their “bidding.” It makes a lot of sense. Really. Good thinking.
Joe Moag
@Scott Berwitz: Glad that you didn’t (since you couldn’t) refute my statements about Lieberman and his motives or his allegiances.
Also, I have to admit, it has been interesting going back and forth with you. It is so rare that one gets to confront a single-issue ethicist. It’s “honorable principles” to stab your party, your state and your country in the back if it is for a single purpose, the greater glory of Israel, right?
I mean, single-issue voters, sure…they’re everywhere…but single-issue ethicists: rare.
Scott Berwitz
Joe –
Give me a break, man. Seriously. You think Lieberman stabbed his party in the back, you’re welcome to think it. His state and his country? You’ve gone off the deep end.
I don’t know where I said anything about how I think the U.S. should be working solely for Israeli interests, but it seems to be another highly questionable, strawman talking point you’ve clung to.
It’s equally rare for me to come across someone who in so many words has admitted that he places partisanship above principle. Party loyalty, in my view, is the rotting core of political discourse. It’s amazing that people, like yourself, considering it not only a good thing, but something that trumps objectivity, free thought, critical thinking and honest, intraparty debate.