The other day Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's Benedict Arnold, appealed to Connecticut voters to look beyond his fervid support of Bush's Iraq Bust in the Dust and skim his 'liberal' record. Okay, Joe, let's do that.
Aside from Lieberman being the toast of Washington Neoconnery, as Lindsay Beyerstein at AlterNet recently delineated in "Who Blows Joe?":
True friends of Joe Lieberman include:
-- George W. Bush
-- College Republicans
-- Right-wing slimelord David Horowitz
-- Indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
Even kooky neocon doma-hatetrix Ann Coulter likes Joe, along with dozens of reactionary right-wingers of the so-called 'Mainstream' Mediaplex, such as oily RNC propagandist David Brooks of The New York Times, who wrote of Joltin' Joe, presumably with a strolling violinist scratching the theme from "Love Story" in the background and a bottle of the house's best bubbly on ice, "[He is] transparently the most kindhearted and well-intentioned of men." (Gasp, swoon -- where's the ring, Joe?)
Matt Taibbi, in "Bush's Favorite Democrat" from the August 10, 2006 edition of Rolling Stone, tears away Lieberman's avuncular old Elmer Fudd moralist guise to reveal the crass Under the Beltway monster beneath:
"[Joe Lieberman] is everything a Washington insider loves in a politician. He is pompous, pious and available. Routinely one of the very top recipients of campaign donations from the insurance, pharmaceutical and finance sectors, and a man whose wife, Hadassah, is a pharmaceutical-industry lobbyist for Hill and Knowlton, Lieberman has quietly become one of the greatest allies corporate America has in Washington."
In other words, the only difference between Lieberman and, say, GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is the color of their hair and their alleged religious beliefs. ('Alleged' because both of these guys, at the end of the day, belong to one religion -- the Church of Mammon.)
Taibbi goes on to expose the other scat littering Lieberman's feculent record. While he may take off Saturdays to keep faith with his Old Testament God, Holy Joe spends the rest of the week giving the Devil more than his due.
-- In 1998, Lieberman was instrumental in the passage of a law to shield chemical companies like Dow and DuPont from lawsuits for producing shoddy medical device, such as breast implants. As Taibbi wrote, "Yes, that's right: Joe Lieberman fought for the principle of manufacturing faulty fake tits with impunity."
-- In 2001, Lieberman pumped for S. 1764, a bill lengthening the patent coverage held by big pharmaceutical companies, insuring that affordable generic versions of expensive medicines would take longer to reach the shelves. ("Take that, Mr. and Mrs. Retired America!") Joe hid his foul payback to his corporate contributors under misleading 'combating bioterrorism' rhetoric.
-- He has supported legislation banning federal money from organizations that counselled desperate suicidal teens that being gay wasn't a reason to take your own life.
-- He became a member of Lynne Cheney's American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization that seeks to limit the free speech of teachers should they dare to disagree with Mrs. Cheney's husband, and publishes a McCarthyesque blacklist of 'anti-American academics.'
-- A darling of the insurance companies, he sponsored a bill that limited lawsuits against auto insurers and allowed lower consumer insurance rates, in exchange for the public forfeiting their right to sue the insurer.
-- Lieberman has a consistent record of jumping onboard much of the Republican social-oppression agenda, especially as it extends to the activities of private citizens in their own bedrooms. ("Is that fellatio I see? You'll have to come with me, sir. No, not like that!")
-- Lieberman has voted for NAFTA, CAFTA and a host of other legislation that disenfranchises American workers to enhance the profits of multi-national corporations. He has also accepted campaign contributions from Wal-Mart's right-wing PAC, while presenting himself as a populist 'man of the people' -- yeah, Joe, the rich people.
-- He practically invented the benighted Department of Homeland Security, rubber-stamped the incompetent Michael Brown as head of FEMA, and voted to put the Federalist Society's Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court. (The Federalist's believe strongly in the 'unitary executive' theory, essentially meaning the president is above the law and rules as a monarch.) He also voted for John Roberts on the SC, and Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
-- In 1997 -- slap o' the forehead -- he tried to blame the Columbine massacre on rock music lyrics.
-- In the 1990s, Joe also tied his rickety wagon to the GOP 'Impeach Clinton' bandwagon on 'moral' grounds, yet he has never spoken out against Bush on the immorality of his various wars. Like most Bible-belted neocons, sex is always more horrible and disgusting than the dead bodies of young people killed in an unnecessary war.
-- In his campaign against Ned Lamont, Lieberman has adopted such choice GOP tactics as spreading handbills in black neighborhoods with a picture of Joe with Bill Clinton on the cover; on the back, the copy subtly implies that Lamont is some kind of rich white elitist, as if the coddled three-term Senator Lieberman isn't. His campaign has also loaded Lamont coffee-shop stops with Lieberman supporters, and planted hecklers in the crowd to disrupt Lamont campaign events. Karl Rove would be proud.
This then, apart from his support for Bush's Iraq disaster, is the real face of Joe Lieberman: A vicious warmongering Religo-Right neocon moralist, tirelessly defending corporations as they rip asunder what's left of Main Street America; crapping on the poor and working class while posing as a progressive Democrat whose only true liberality lies in his specious use of quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. to huckster up the Democratic vote.
Dark rumors surfaced several years ago that Lieberman, when he was Gore's Veep candidate in 2000, was a secret back-channel link to the Bush campaign, apprising them in advance of Gore's next move in the campaign and contested Florida vote, a conspiracy theory that assumes some solidity considering who Joe's most ardent supporters are these days.
No wonder Bush planted a big wet one on Elmer Fudd; he may owe his presidency to the Senator from Connecticut, AKA 'Traitor Joe.'
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