A DIFFERENT LIEBERMAN REMEMBERED (a staunch pro-abortion candidate makes a pro-life pledge)

Washington Times | 9/11/00 | George Archibald

[Liz]

September 11, 2000

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is a staunch supporter of abortion rights now, and even voted (six times) against a ban on partial-birth abortion, but Catholic leaders in Connecticut remember another Joe Lieberman.

He called on the state's archbishop with a pro-life pledge 12 years ago, when he was first a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and even told pro-life leaders he would have voted to confirm Judge Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Lieberman met with Archbishop John F. Whealon of Hartford to seek Catholic votes in the final stretch of his 1988 Democratic bid to oust 18-year Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a Republican who supported abortion rights, from the U.S. Senate.

"Joe was very liberal, like Weicker, but we had a poll on abortion that showed which way the wind was blowing," says Daniel Cosgrove, then the Democratic town chairman in Branford, Mr. Lieberman's hometown. The poll showed anti-abortion sentiment outweighed pro-choice views in urban areas throughout Connecticut. "In the Waterbury area, it was more than any, 12,000 [more] against," Mr. Cosgrove says.

Records of a meeting between Mr. Lieberman and top officials of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) two months after the 1988 election quote Mr. Lieberman as saying he "thinks there are too many abortions," and promisinghe would not "apply a litmus test" against pro-life judicial nominees.

Archbishop Whealon has since died, but his former secretary, Father Thomas Berry, says he remembers the 1988 meeting where Mr. Lieberman "expressed himself as coming from a tradition in support of life, not in favor of abortion on demand."

"He expressed himself against abortion, all suicide, and euthanasia. His position on that definitely was well received by the archbishop and priests," Father Berry says.

A spokesman for Mr. Lieberman says Mr. Cosgrove's memory of the meeting with the archbishop "is not accurate," and says Mr. Lieberman has been consistently pro-choice. Mr. Cosgrove says he and state Sen. Regina Smith, who conducted the pro-life poll for the archdiocese, arranged for

Mr. Lieberman, then the state attorney general, to meet with the Catholic prelate before the election to lay out his support for Catholic pro-life positions, which Mr. Weicker had actively opposed.

The strategy worked, Mr. Cosgrove says. Mr. Lieberman convinced the archbishop he favored pro-life positions and would vote differently than Mr. Weicker, thus winning Catholic support that pushed him to a narrow 10,000-vote victory — the only Democratic Senate upset of that year.

With Republican Vice President George Bush outpolling Democrat Michael S. Dukakis by almost 100,000 votes in Connecticut's presidential balloting that year, Mr. Lieberman's strategic appeal for pro-life votes countered the

Republican tide that otherwise might have benefited Mr. Weicker, Mr. Cosgrove says. Mr. Lieberman's winning margin was less than 1 percent of 1.4 million votes. Mr. Lieberman, an orthodox Jew, has defended his record, saying Jewish law is so deeply divided on the issue of abortion that even among orthodox Jews it may be construed as "a personal matter." The senator's spokesman, Dan Gerstein, insists there was no meeting between Mr. Lieberman and the archbishop before the 1988 election. "No one on staff at the time can remember a meeting with Archbishop Whealon during the campaign.

He had a private meeting with the archbishop after the election," the spokesman said. "Mr. Cosgrove's recollection of what was said at the meeting also is not accurate," Mr. Gerstein said. Mr. Lieberman "never said he would limit a woman's right to choose, that he would vote to ban abortion or to overturn Roe v. Wade."

The Supreme Court, in that 1973 case, held that a woman had a constitutional right to an abortion in certain circumstances. Mr. Lieberman has voted consistently pro-choice, both as a Connecticut state senator and U.S. senator, since his first elective office in 1970, Mr. Gerstein said.

Father Berry, now assigned to St. Mary's Parish in Newington, Conn., says Mr. Lieberman presented himself as a clear pro-life alternative, saying, "He was not an abortion activist as Senator Weicker was . . . and said his approach would be different."

In fact, Mr. Lieberman's pro-life assurances were so convincing that Archbishop Whealon arranged for the Democratic candidate to meet with Catholic priests throughout the state shortly before the November 1988 balloting. Mr. Lieberman's expressed pro-life views in those meetings, Father Berry said. "That probably was not insignificant" in the November 1988 election outcome, he said.

Two months after the election, Mr. Lieberman and key staff aides again met with pro-life leaders in Washington and assured them he was an ally, says Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).

Mr. Lieberman said he would have voted to confirm Judge Bork to the Supreme Court had he been a member of the Senate during the confirmation hearings, according to written minutes of the meeting with Dr. Jack C. Willke, then the NRLC head, and Regina Smith, Connecticut's representative to the group.

Judge Bork, who was eventually denied confirmation, testified in Senate hearings that he would have voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Mr. Lieberman "would have voted for Bork, under whom he studied" at Yale University law school, according to the meeting notes taken by Mr. Johnson.

The notes quoted Mr. Lieberman as saying: "I'm not going to vote against a judicial nominee just because he's pro-life. I'm not going to apply a litmus test."

Mr. Lieberman acknowledged there was disagreement among his own new Senate staff on the abortion issue, the notes show: "He thinks there are too many abortions, but many disagree, women will have them anyway. He is unsettled, ambivilent [sic]. Some staff on both sides. Always access to him or top staff, will be heard respectfully. Regina is great. Continue dialog." ####

[Coleus]

He's such a fraud.

[Liz]

A staunch pro-abortion advocate calls on Catholic leaders with a pro-life pledge.

[Alberta's Child]

In a related story, Joe Lieberman also pointed out that if he were elected president he would set new standards for "leadership" and "political courage."

"If I had been the local representative of Caesar in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, Judah Ben Hur would have been rightly recognized as the first NASCAR champion instead of having to prove himself in the mud and crime as a former slave," he said.

"For that matter," he added, "we'd all be Jewish now because Christianity wouldn't even exist -- that Jesus guy would only have been crucified over my dead body."

/sarcasm off/

[Victoria Delsoul]

Watch what phony baloney Joey does, and not what he says.

I couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for the ping.

[Liz]

....Lieberman also pointed out that if he were elected president he would set new standards for "leadership" and "political courage......"

........only in his dreams.......

[Liz]

Glad you took the time to post. Ping your Catholic and
pro-life ping lists to this thread if you have them. Thanks.

[Coleus]

`

[cpforlife.org]

Coleus,

Thanks for the heads up. I think Liz in her #35 said it all:

"A no-brainer. A politican of any stripe who votes for the destruction of innocent life is not worthy of office.

But a lying pretender like LIEberman who blatantly pledged pro-life support knowing full well he would vote pro-abortion is beneath contempt. This toad gained political ascendacy on the backs of the innocent unborn. He is despicable.

And that's a diplomatic way of putting it."

[ladyinred]

It is obvious that LIEberman was never really committed to being Pro Life, and most likely needed votes from those who leaned that way once upon a time. It is too bad that politicians sell their souls to retain power, and that voters ignore the sudden changes of convictions when they go to the polls.

[Coleus]

From What I understand LIEberman is excommunicated from the Orthodox Union. Rabbi Yehuda Levin called him Pharoh during his speech at this past March for Life!

http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2000/8/21/155455
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17696
http://www.jewsformorality.org/press_releases/press_releases.htm
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/12000i.asp
http://www.concordtx.org/msnews/excom.htm
http://www.rtlnm.org/newsletters/vivanov00.pdf
http://thebarristers.com/weblog/2003_01_19_archived.html

[ladyinred]

Thanks for the links. I did wonder what the Orthodox position was on this.

[cpforlife.org]

Hey that's right!

I saw it live on EWTN. I kept the tape, it was indeed this past Jan-22, at the March for life in DC.

Our bishops could learn a lot from Rabbi Yehuda Levin!!

[nickcarraway]

Yes, I heard Rabbi Levin. (Couldn't see him from where I was) He said the Senator Lieberman was an orthodox liberal, not an Orthodox Jew.

[Salvation]

**He called on the state's archbishop with a pro-life pledge 12 years ago, when he was first a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and even told pro-life leaders he would have voted to confirm Judge Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court.**

This would play havoc with his campaign if it just happened to come out in the news, wouldn't it?

[Liz]

**(Lieberman) called on the state's archbishop with a pro-life pledge 12 years ago, when he was first a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and even told pro-life leaders he would have voted to confirm Judge Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court.**

This would play havoc with his campaign if it just happened to come out in the news, wouldn't it?

Among those to whom the truth is paramount, it would certainly cause havoc.

To the rest, LIEberman would find a way (read lie) his way out of the dilemma.

[votelife]

lie-berman would NEVER have voted for Bork...Sad that people believe such lies.

[BlackElk]

Lieberman, an accomplished liar, is STILL better than Lowell Weicker. Only Lucifer may be an almost invisible smidgeon worse that Lowell Weicker. BTW, Dan Cosgrove is a personal acquaintance, a turbo-Catholic, a fellow knight, and one of the very last Democrat patriots in America (which means that he probably votes exclusively Republican unless it is Weicker). He is sharp as a tack at about 90 years of age, still runs his own construction company, and Lieberman had that meeting with Archbishop Whealon as Dan accurately reports for the specific purposes in question and Lieberman was recommended to the priests. Whealon, BTW, was one of the very few Catholic Archbishops to register Republican (strictly on the abortion issue) and he appeared with both Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder at Connecticut campaign appearances to underline where he stood. Lieberman, unlike Weicker, never served as governor and never used the governor's mansion for an endless round of NARAL and Planned Barrenhood fundraisers.

[sitetest]

Dear BlackElk,

If elected to the House or Senate as a Republican, even Satan might be preferable to a so-called pro-life Democrat, so long as he could be counted on to vote for Republican leaders when organizing these bodies, and on party-line votes on issues which are not technically ideological in nature, such as on judicial nominees and cloture votes.

Even should a so-called pro-life Dem not eventually succumb to the pressures of the party of death, he is a eunuch, at least as far as the cause of life. He is worse than useless. He gives power to the party of death, and gets nothing in return for those whose lives are unprotected by the law.

But it is more likely that over time, the so-called pro-life Dem will eventually succumb to the murderous pressure of the death party, and will become a pro-deather, himself. For every Bonior, who remained uselessly pro-life to the end of his time in Congress, there are Nunn, Gephardt, Daschle, Gore, Clinton, KENNEDY, most recently Kucinich, and others. The list could stretch a long way of Democrats who once were solidly pro-life, and who became pro-death.

I'd have rather had Weicker all this time than Lieberman. For one thing, assuming Weicher had remained a Republican, Jeffords would have never left the party (no gain for him), and Daschle would not have had nearly two years as Majority Leader. The ban on partial-birth abortion would have been voted on in the 2001-2002 session, rather than this session (even with 65 votes for the ban, the Democrat-organized Senate NEVER EVEN PERMITTED A VOTE ON THE QUESTION for nearly two years). The debacle regarding judicial nominees would likely never have developed. There would be 52 nominal Republicans in the Senate. With 52 in the Senate, we'd have a little greater chance at 60 after the 2004 elections, making the Senate filibuster-proof.

At the executive level, governor or president, one can argue that a good Democrat (conservative, pro-life) is better than a bad Republican, because executives have a freedom of action that legislators don't. But in the legislature, almost any Repubican is superior to almost any Democrat.


sitetest

[RobbyS]

Slowly, slowly, the two parties are becoming more ideologically focused. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, both commonplace two or three decades ago, are becoming endangered species.

Not surprisingly, the issue that has caused this divide is abortion. Ironically this has happened because the "Pro-choice" crowd are fanatics who refused to live with the limits proposed in Roe V. Wade. If they had accepted the trimester scheme, the pro-life movement might not have held its ground.

[Salvation]

You do have a point there! We shall never know??????????