Does she ever give any other kind?
Posted on 12/08/2003 4:30:48 PM PST by knak
He regularly says on his program: "Let it be Dean. Please, let it be Dean."
Giving Lieberman the benefit of anything, without keeping your hand firmly on your wallet, is a big misjudgement.
How great would it be if he joined Zell Miller in criticizing the far-looney left?
Come on, he still panders to the left... he still slams Bush at every opportunity... during the 2000 race, he did a 180 on so many fronts, pandering on quotas, school choice, etc... all issues he was more mainstream on, then switched over to the looney left. He supports the Iraq effort and Israel, great, but wouldn't you expect that from a candidate of Jewish decent (he's a religious, non-self-hating Jew)? That's all fine, but on nearly every other issue, he DOES pander. I don't feel any more sorry for him than I do for Ketchup Boy Kerry.
EXACTLY!
Does she ever give any other kind?
Centerists? Is that what they're calling rabid liberals these days?
Are you saying you expected Lieberman, as an honest Joe, not to play along to the hilt with Daley, once they embarked on the recount debacle? That's unrealistic. That's the moral equivalent to the Dems blaming Bush for resisting recounts.
He's a politician; he plays the game. It wasn't his call to contest the Florida vote. Sorry, I just believe him that he wouldn't want the military ballots thrown out.
As for Gore, I give him the benefit of no doubt whatsoever. I giggled at my brother (a Democrat) for believing nonsense that it was an independent effort to throw out those other absentee ballots on that technicality.
I guess there are Gore-bots that are not anti-war. How many Dean-bots can make that claim?
It's true that ol' Joe is a democrat, but he is to the right of everyone in the field from that socialist collectivist party. And, compared to Hillary or Gore......well, there is no comparison. During the debacle of the 2000 election, he was drawn by powerful forces that were largely beyond his control. He did not support the disenfranchisement of the military vote. He continues to support a strong military, national defense, the war on terror and a strong Israel. All this, while toeing the party line.
My point in my previous post was to agree with Southack that in the event of Lieberman wanting to switch parties, he would be welcome. He has some measure of integrity. Comparing him to the Kennedy's, the Clinton's and the Gore's make that obvious.
Lando 
He's a politician; he plays the game. It wasn't his call to contest the Florida vote. Sorry, I just believe him that he wouldn't want the military ballots thrown out.
If Lieberman had even a shred of decency, he would have walked away from Gore when the 2000 debacle began. There is no way an "honest Joe" could go along with such a blatently illegal attempt.
There is no moral equivalency - Bush was morally and ethically required to resist the illegal actions of Gore and Daley. Lieberman was morally and ethically required to break from Gore/Daley and say that they were doing wrong. To "play along to the hilt," is not only being an accessory to the crime but an absolute collapse of character.
Playing the game is the excuse of the scum politician and Lieberman blew whichever way the media wind blew, a flaw of the scum politician.
It's an interesting debate. I do think Dick Nixon deserves admiration for not contesting 1960, though there are always those who say he just wanted to preserve his hide for a future run.
From Day One, I blasted Gore for not following Nixon's precedent of putting the country ahead of his own victory. But it wouldn't have been illegal for Nixon to contest, and it wasn't illegal for Gore to contest. Just unseemly of a statesman. Things got out of hand with the contest, and some very wrong things were attempted by the Gore side. But I think you exaggerate the degree to which there was a moral mandate for Joe Lieberman to reject the entire 2000 debacle.
It wasn't illegal to contest the results; it was illegal in the way Gore did it. He violated the law in contesting the results, he violated the law in engineering a fixed recount of only Demorat districts, he violated law and decency in attempting to disenfranchised the military.
Lieberman did have a moral mandate to say a) be a statesman like Nixon, b) if the thing must be done, the do it within the law, and c) once laws were broken and scum tactics were used, to speak out against the whole mess.
Not doing so and playing with the team severely diminishes him in my eyes the same way a cheap thug who plays along with criminals because it's easier.
Dealing with reality bothers you, somehow?
Lieberman remains in the Senate no matter what at this point.
You can let him remain a Democrat, where it will cost us more money, pork, and favors to overcome Democratic Party filibusters (your preferred option, I presume), or else you can offer him a plum like a Senate committee chairmanship and have him caucus with Republicans.
But either way, Lieberman remains in the Senate. It's just a question of what sort of power is used to buy his votes that remains...
Presuming, of course, that you **want** the Senate to approve Bush's privatization of Social Security, Bush's judicial nominees, school vouchers, and a comprehensive Energy Bill in the next legislative session.
Far too many idealists seem to be jumping onto Free Republic as of late, all pretending to a fault that we have Dictator Bush in office rather than a President, and all of whom seem to likewise be ignoring the power that the Democrats still retain as if we don't have to deal with them in the least.
That's juvenile fantasy land, kid.
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