Please, Joe Lieberman, Don't Throw Us In That Briar Patch!

by hilzoy

Every so often columnists for major newspapers decide to let someone else use them to make a point or send a message. On Sunday, David Broder placed his column at the service of Joe Lieberman, so that Lieberman could threaten to run as an independent:

"Lieberman insists he can win the primary. But he has another option. Connecticut law says that he could run as an independent, but he would have to file 7,500 signatures the day after the primary.

He says he knows of no effort to gather signatures now. But he also says, "I want to put my whole record before the whole voting population of Connecticut" -- clearly implying an independent run if he loses to Lamont in August.

Thus, a possibility John Bailey could not have imagined: A former Democratic vice presidential candidate, a three-term senator, a former state Senate majority leader and state attorney general forced to run as an independent.

"I know I'm taking a position that is not popular within the party," Lieberman said, "but that is a challenge for the party -- whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line. No successful political party has ever done that.""

This is a column that might as well end with the words: "I'm Joe Lieberman, and I approved this message." And a pretty repellent message it is.

For starters, think about the idea that Joe Lieberman might be "forced to run as an independent." Forced? By whom? When most people lose primaries, they accept defeat and go on to other things. Not Joe Lieberman, though: if he loses his primary, he will apparently be compelled by unknown forces to abandon his party. It's not his free choice, apparently: he will be forced to do it.

Maybe these are the same unknown forces who are responsible for this statement at the hearings on Abu Ghraib:

"I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.

And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody." (Emphasis added.)

Why anyone would want to be represented by a Senator who is forever being compelled to say and do things by some unnamed power is a mystery.

Then there's that "jihad" business. Various Lieberman surrogates have already used all sorts of really ugly language to describe a fairly ordinary primary challenge. According to the DLC, it's a "purge", a term they repeat seven times in this one piece (along with calling the primary challenge "liberal fundamentalism, litmus tests, intimidation of dissenters, and purges".) One of his supporters described it as "terrorizing" Lieberman, and (elsewhere) as "Democratic cannibalism."

But this time it's Joe Lieberman himself, calling a primary challenge against him part of a jihad. Wrong, Senator Lieberman: it's a primary challenge. That's one of the things about democracy: the fact that you are an incumbent does not entitle you to continue serving as long as you feel like it. People can challenge you, and despite the many advantages of incumbency, they sometimes win. Deal with it.

(And I don't want to hear about this being a primary in August that will probably have low turnout. Elections with low turnout can lead to results that don't reflect the will of the people -- e.g., when the winner in some obscure school board election turns out to be a neo-Nazi -- but the reason those results do not reflect the will of the people is that no one was paying attention. In this case, everyone in Connecticut probably knows that this primary will determine whether Joe Lieberman or Ned Lamont will be the Democratic nominee for Senate. If Lieberman's supporters don't turn out but Lamont's do, that just means people don't care enough about Lieberman to show up and vote. There's nothing unrepresentative about that.)

Next point: I have been reading what Democrats say about Lieberman, and in my opinion it has nothing whatsoever to do with our willingness to embrace diverse opinions. Lots of people take positions we disagree with (e.g.: Harry Reid on abortion), and yet, oddly enough, do not get primary challenges mounted against them. What annoys people about Lieberman is not that he disagrees with them on the war; it's that time and again, and particularly on major issues, he not only sides with the Republicans, but repeats their talking points, even when what he is saying is just plain wrong.

He doesn't just support the war; he suggests that people who criticize President Bush's handling of it are undermining his credibility. (As though Bush wasn't doing a good enough job of that all by himself.) He visited Baghdad at a time when the country was plainly going to hell in a handbasket and reported nothing but progress, leading some reporters to wonder whether he and they had been in the same country. He supports the use of torture against terrorists, and voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales when his involvement in formulating the policies that enabled torture was clear.

But wait! There's more! Lieberman voted with the Republicans on the Terri Schiavo case, and said that he supported Gov. Bush's actions. He supports the right of Catholic hospitals to deny contraception to rape victims. He never came out clearly against privatizing Social Security. Moreover, when Bush claimed that the Social Security trustees had said that postponing action on Social Security would cost $600 billion for each year of delay, and it turned out both that the trustees had said no such thing and that the claim was false, look what happened next (sorry; TimesSelect):

"In his latest radio address, Mr. Bush -- correctly, this time -- attributed the $600 billion figure to a ''Democrat leader.'' He was referring to Senator Joseph Lieberman, who, for some reason, repeated the party line -- the Republican party line -- the previous Sunday.

My guess is that Mr. Lieberman thought he was being centrist and bipartisan, reaching out to Republicans by showing that he shares their concerns. At a time when the Democrats can say, without exaggeration, that their opponents are making a dishonest case for policies that will increase the risks facing families, Mr. Lieberman gave the administration cover by endorsing its fake numbers."

Besides that, he has a habit of voting with the Republicans on cloture votes on important issues, and then voting with the Democrats on the bills themselves. This allows him to claim to have voted the way his constituents want, but to lend the Republicans crucial support by preventing filibusters. He did this on the appalling bankruptcy bill and the Alito nomination, for instance.

And let's not forget that Lieberman was responsible for one of the loopholes that allowed the Enron scandal to occur:

"It is worth noting that Senator Lieberman's greatest impact on public policy resulted from his drive in 1993 to prevent the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from requiring companies to deduct stock options as a expense against profits. With stock options growing in importance at the time, the FASB came to the conclusion that this was the proper accounting mechanism for stock options. The vast majority of financial experts, including Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Chairman Paul Volcker, and investor Warren Buffet, have also argued strongly for expensing of stock options. They have also argued that the failure to accurately account for stock options was an important factor in the recent round of accounting scandals.

Senator Lieberman forced the FASB to reverse itself by threatening to take away its quasi-official status if they insisted on treating stock options as an expense. At the time, Senator Lieberman was a major recipient of campaign contributions from the tech sector, which was especially dependent on stock options."

Moreover, as chair of the Senate Investigations committee, he made only the vaguest gestures towards investigating the Bush administration's links to Enron:

"One major reason Democrats have failed to get traction on the issue is that Lieberman has, so far, been unwilling to play hardball as chairman of the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee. (It's not the only committee investigating Enron, but it has primary jurisdiction over fraud and corruption within the executive branch.) Three months after Lieberman said he would launch an investigation of Enron's collapse, the committee has held only a handful of hearings and has yet to subpoena a single Bush administration official. Instead, Lieberman recently sent "requests" for information to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and others -- the congressional equivalent of "pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top." (They ignored the deadline for responding.) (...)

Investigating the administration's Enron connections needn't devolve into a Fred Thompson-style crusade or, God forbid, descend to Dan Burton levels of fishing-expedition excess (final tally: 1,048 subpoenas issued to the Clinton administration). There are any number of credible, specific allegations about which top administration officials should be forced to testify under oath. How about Dick Cheney's phone call to the Los Angeles Times in April 2001, in which he expressed strong opposition to electricity price caps -- a day after Ken Lay met with the vice president to discuss his strong opposition to price caps? Or the White House's unprecedented diplomatic intervention regarding the sale of a Dahbol, India, power plant in which Enron owned a majority stake? Or Office of Management and Budget head Mitch Daniels' efforts to get House Republicans to repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax -- a matter that Lay had personally discussed with him?"

I mean, really: what's not to like?

***

To my mind, the shortest version of why people dislike Lieberman is this:

"By all accounts, he is not a man driven by ideological passion but one who prizes his reputation as a pragmatic, reasonable, statesmanlike politician."

Prizing genuine pragmatism, reasonableness, and statesmanship is a good thing. Prizing your reputation as a pragmatic, reasonable, statesmanlike politician is something else entirely. That's not about really trying to get things right; it's about being seen as a particular sort of person: one who rises above the partisan squabbles that lesser mortals engage in, and can be counted on to occupy some allegedly responsible middle ground. This difference matters: a person who is genuinely concerned with reasonableness and statesmanship is a lot more likely to recognize when one side is not interested in compromise at all, or when it's wrong to seek out the middle ground (as it would be, for instance, when someone is being mugged: looking for the middle ground between a mugger and his victim is entirely the wrong response.) Someone who is concerned merely with seeming to be reasonable, by contrast, is a lot more likely to find himself doing things like this (from Josh Marshall's description of his attempts to pin Lieberman down on Social Security):

"We went back and forth with him. I'd talk to his staffers and folks around him and work and work and work to get a straight answer, but just had the hardest time. It was always this statement or that that seemed to support Social Security but really left the door open to some compromise on phase out when you looked at it closely. On and on and on.

And what was the point of that? Certainly it wasn't political, at least not in the narrow sense. Lieberman didn't have anything to worry about in Connecticut. If it was ideological, what's that about? It's a core Democratic issue. Not a shibboleth or a sacred cow. But a core reason why most Democrats are Democrats.

In the end it just seemed like a desire to be in the mix for some illusory compromise or grand bargain, an ingrained disinclination to take a stand, even in a case when it really mattered. There's some whiff of indifference to the great challenges of the age, even amidst the atmospherics of concern."

This, I think, is what bothers people about Lieberman: that when push comes to shove, he is more concerned with his reputation as one of the reasonable people who rises above mere partisan bickering than with principle, and that this leads him both to trash his own party (since, of course, a Democrat can only establish his bipartisan bona fides by embracing Republican positions and criticizing Democrats), and to compromise even when compromise is wrong. His obvious flirtation with the idea of leaving the party can only strengthen this impression.

As a friend of mine reminded me recently, this isn't the first time Lieberman has placed his own narrow interests above those of the party. Back in 2000, when he was nominated to be Al Gore's running mate, he had to decide whether to continue running for his Senate seat. Had he withdrawn, the Democrats would have been able to nominate someone else, and that person would almost certainly have won. If he stayed in the race and Gore won the Presidency, however, Connecticut's governor would have named his replacement; and since Connecticut's governor was then a Republican, Lieberman's replacement would have been a Republican as well.

Lieberman decided to stay in the race. This decision was a pretty clear vote of 'no confidence' in his and Gore's chances. As such, it probably had some marginal effect on the race; and, as we know, in that race, every single vote mattered. Moreover, had Gore won, Lieberman's decision would have cost the Democrats one Senate seat in a Senate that ended up being split 50-50.

Joe Lieberman is only in the Senate today because of that selfish decision. It was the right one in terms of his own political career, but it was wrong for the party and wrong for the country. Now Lieberman is threatening to leave the party because he might lose a primary. As far as I'm concerned, he left us long ago; this just makes it official. And by making it clear what he really cares about, namely his own self-interest, his departure from the party would do the voters of Connecticut a real service.

Comments

[Steve]

For some people, open primaries are a sign of the health of our democratic system, a demonstration that people with competing viewpoints can hash their differences out through the electoral process and find out whose views are compelling to a majority of voters. Of course, I suppose it looks different if you're the incumbent who might lose his job. Then it's absolutely terrible that a majority of primary voters might believe that Ned Lamont represents their views better than Joe Lieberman, because that would show the voters are not open to "different" views, where "different views" is defined as "the views of Joe Lieberman."

Awful, isn't it? And if Katherine Harris loses her Senate bid in Florida this year, that will show the voters of Florida just aren't open to the views of Katherine Harris, and wouldn't that be just awful for democracy?

It seems like there ought to be more contested primaries in this country, in general. It's flat-out amazing how incumbents like Lieberman can develop this absolute attitude of entitlement towards their position, as if God Himself chose Joe Lieberman to speak for the people of Connecticut.

As Hilzoy points out, it's an oversimplification to say this primary challenge is solely about Lieberman's views on the war. But what if it was? When asked to identify the most important issues facing the country today, voters overwhelmingly identify the Iraq war. If voters strongly disagree with Lieberman's position on the most important issue of the day, would it be so undemocratic to recall him over that issue?

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

In other briar patch news, I heard that Bush is going to resign if people don't start being nicer to him.

"Prizing genuine pragmatism, reasonableness, and statesmanship is a good thing. Prizing your reputation as a pragmatic, reasonable, statesmanlike politician is something else entirely."

That is so exactly my problem with much of what passes for international diplomacy. I know I'm beating a very dead horse, but that is my nature. :)

I can't really talk about the topic of the post directly because I'm not a Republican to get involved directly in Democratic inner workings. So I'll stop rambling now.

[Slartibartfast]

And if Katherine Harris loses her Senate bid in Florida this year, that will show the voters of Florida just aren't open to the views of Katherine Harris, and wouldn't that be just awful for democracy?

It's quite possible Harris won't even make it out of the primaries, although who's running against her is, well, a personal-injury attorney who's well to the right of Harris, politically. I don't think either of them stand a chance against Bill Nelson, though, Harris' "widow's mite" notwithstanding.

[Prodigal]

So Lieberman's message is "If you vote for my opponent in the primary, I'll work to prevent the Democrats from retaining the seat." Cute, Joe, real cute.

[IntricateHelix]

First, I think that if Joe Lieberman is going to use the switchover tactic (to the Independent party) to stay in the race he should have the guts to do it from the start. But it's evident he has no understanding of what he himself stands for (voting discrepancies) or whom he represents. So this selfish tactic isn't surprising.

As far as the actual election goes, I am assuming the real issue here is fear that if Lieberman runs as an Independent against a Democrat and Republican, amongst others, he might split the Democratic vote, enabling a Republican to win.

Frankly, after years of Lieberman saying one thing while in actuality the truth is another, or voting against his previous statements…. Let’s get a Senator that actually votes for what he believes in, stands by his vote, and doesn’t play the back-and-forth game to appease uninformed voters.

On a completely different note I wish the United States were completely nonpartisan. Every individual runs for office based upon his or her true ideology and may the best man or woman win. Seriously though, there truly is no point to political parties besides huge purses used during elections. Maybe a nonpartisan system would get the American people to actually research running-platforms rather than deciding between parties. Imagine how productive our legislative branch could be. But this will never happen.

(Additionally, allow voters to decide every 4 years on the presidential ballot whether Congress deserves a raise. That happened again this week and is ludicrous.)

[Jay C]

IntricateHelix:
You wrote:

"As far as the actual election goes, I am assuming the real issue here is fear that if Lieberman runs as an Independent against a Democrat and Republican, amongst others, he might split the Democratic vote, enabling a Republican to win"

The bulk of the analysis I have seen so far on the Connecticut Senate race seems to deal more with the fear that Joe Lieberman running in a 3-way race is more likely to split the Republican vote, and get back into the Senate by peeling off enough conservative/pro-war "security" votes from both parties to get a plurality.

Either way, the issue (for Lieberman) does seem to be more one of an astonishing sense of entitlement to his Senate seat. That he might actually have to go out and justify his tenure to the electorate (still less his own Party) looks to have purely gobsmacked him - and his campaign so far seems to show it.
Sorry, Joe: it's this little process we have here in America: it's called "democracy".

[Pooh]

Hil,

Perfect. Just perfect. I've struggled to articulate just what it is about Lieberman that drives 'us' nuts and you seem to have nailed it here.

[Gary Farber]

"As far as the actual election goes, I am assuming the real issue here is fear that if Lieberman runs as an Independent against a Democrat and Republican, amongst others, he might split the Democratic vote, enabling a Republican to win."

Um, this doesn't accord well with the reality of Connecticut politics. Lieberman would draw more Republican and independent votes as an Independent than Democratic, and would stand a good chance of winning. A Republican in those circumstances: not so much.

"Seriously though, there truly is no point to political parties besides huge purses used during elections."

This is pretty much too silly to be worth discussing.

If they have "no point," (i.e., the writer doesn't like them), how do you explain how they have happened to occurred?

"Maybe a nonpartisan system would get the American people to actually research running-platforms rather than deciding between parties. Imagine how productive our legislative branch could be. But this will never happen."

Just so. I'm not applauding parties as a purely wonderful thing; not at all; but they exist for eminently good reasons (meaning, powerful reasons, not reasons that we have to applaud), which is that they serve a necessary and useful purpose.

[Gary Farber]

"Additionally, allow voters to decide every 4 years on the presidential ballot whether Congress deserves a raise."

I prefer the proposition that Congressional pay raises be proportional to raises in the minimum wage. (About which I yesterday pointed to this, incidentally.)

[cleek]

Additionally, allow voters to decide every 4 years on the presidential ballot whether Congress deserves a raise

a Straight Dope fan ?

[judson]

The guy's also real pro-nanny state. Treating adults, and content they wish to view, like children. I can't stand the whiny prick.

[Jackmormon]

I took a look at Lieberman's official bio, just to see what profession he's not pursuing while in the Senate. Wow. The guy's been in elected office since three years out of law school. He probably can't even imagine not being in government.

[Nell]

Steve: It seems like there ought to be more contested primaries in this country, in general.

And there would be, if the campaign financing system weren't a form of legalized bribery. Only self-funding millionaires like Lamont can even consider it, now.

It takes a couple of million to mount a serious Congressional race in many districts. Senate races in all but the smallest states run $8-20 million. (More in the whopper media markets like Calif, NY, NJ).

[Gary Farber]

"It takes a couple of million to mount a serious Congressional race in many districts."

And even when you have it, it's all but irrelevant in something like 380+ of the 435 House races, due to the fix being in via gerrymandering. (More, really, but I'm trying to be "conservative" in my estimation.)

Plus, of course, the amazingly huge advantages of incumbency.

It's a nearly completely broken system, as well as being deeply corrupt. We have less turnover than the Soviet Congress of Deputies ever had, and this has been the case for many many years now.

[Catsy]

It continues to baffle me how many people--primarily Republicans, but also supporters of Lieberman in general--insist on parroting the canard that this is all about Lieberman's support for the Iraq War. I mean, yes, that's certainly part of it, but it defies logic and sense to suppose that's all of it--after all, there's plenty of Democratic Senators who voted for the Iraq War, and more than a few who are still in favor of staying in Iraq for one reason or another. And there's certainly no shortage of Democrats who've voted on the Republican side of various issues, from abortion to taxes.

The problem is Lieberman's consistent track record for putting his career advancement and image ahead of the Democratic party. He's the go-to guy when a pundit or talk show needs to quote or book a Democrat who's willing to make waves by attacking his own people and party.

His aggressive nanny-statism doesn't help, either. Anecdotal and all that, but I have a friend who's very liberal, but whose major "single issue" is censorship. Lieberman's presence on the ticket, combined with the thought of Tipper Gore as First Lady, was what flipped him to vote for Bush in 2000. Hell, if Lieberman ran for President again in 2008 I'd have to think pretty hard about which Republican was running before I decided what lever to pull.

[Christopher M]

Anecdotal and all that, but I have a friend who's very liberal, but whose major "single issue" is censorship. Lieberman's presence on the ticket, combined with the thought of Tipper Gore as First Lady, was what flipped him to vote for Bush in 2000.

No offense, but if your description of your friend as "very liberal" with a focus on "censorship" is right, he sounds like kind of a moron. N'est-ce pas?

[Steve]

And even when you have it, it's all but irrelevant in something like 380+ of the 435 House races, due to the fix being in via gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering doesn't have a lot to do with the lack of contested primaries, though, although machine politics does. Remarkably, though, Lamont has received endorsements from a number of Connecticut insiders, including a former CT Dem. Party Chair. The problem arises when the party throws so much weight behind one candidate that it's impossible for any other contenders to get air.

No offense, but if your description of your friend as "very liberal" with a focus on "censorship" is right, he sounds like kind of a moron.

Hey, there's one in every crowd. I have a friend whose sole reason for voting against the Kerry-Edwards ticket was that he has doctors in the family and Edwards used to be a med mal lawyer.

There's no accounting for the endless variety of human motivation. What you have to wonder is, for each person you know who votes for one of these "quirky" reasons, how many people that you don't know are casting their vote for the same reason? Surely your friend, or my friend, can't be the only one who fits the bill.

[Christopher M]

To be more clear, the moronic part is not being very liberal and focused on censorship, it's having those qualities and thinking that they constitute a reason to vote Bush-Cheney over Gore-Lieberman.