Connecticut Senator Joe Liebermann wants to restore decorum and civility to Congress, to politics, to discourse in general.
Here’s an open letter to Senator Lieberman:
Joe:
These are admirable goals. I would love to see your agenda implemented. But it is the path you have been taking that has my head shaking. Resurrecting politesse requires willingness and good intentions on all involved parties.
Do you truly believe providing political cover for deceivers, back-stabbers and those who deign fairness simply as a sign of gullibility and weakness, is going to work?
About your recent appearance on Sean Hannity’s show–just how is yukking it up with someone who has tested SOB-positive for decades going to transform discourse in this country? If Gentleman Sean confessed his grievious past sins and vowed a new mien of deportment, well, I guess I yawned and missed his mea culpas.
Also, Joe, did you forget Chapter Nine in Hannity’s tome “Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism”? Specifically the part where you are listed among the cabal of Bush-haters harming this country?
Joe, is this something akin to a messiah-like complex? I know, I know, you’re devoutly Jewish. My bad.
Is tea with a reformed Karl Rove next on the appointment calendar? All I can say is, like the royalty of yore, bring a taste tester with you. No, actually I’m wrong. The Black Guard riding highest in this current version of Republican Party will do you no harm because you serve a purpose for them.
So did Marshall Petain.
And Joe, your March 2004 comment to Wolf Blitzer regarding renditions smacks of pre-puberty fandom: “”The president has said we do not condone torture…I don’t start disbelieving the president on this.”
Now comes the recent Robert Novak report (and this pains me to no end, quoting such a multi-faced guttersnipe) that you have revved up your ‘reformist’ credentials by engaging two Republican lobbyists to hold a fund-raising soiree for your political benefit. Such a role model for consensus-building!
Oh yeah, and about that vice-presidential candidate debate with Cheney. Specifically, that moment when Gunner Dick slammed you for your incessant feeding at the government trough while he was out in the rough, tough, mano-a-mano business world earning a living:
LIEBERMAN: You did pretty well over the last eight years, didn’t you?
CHENEY: Yeah, and the government had nothing to do with it.
Hey Joe, he left you an opening even Halliburton, without bothering to double or triple-bill for the effort, could have easily driven a supply truck through.
But you were silent.
And do you care to comment on Michael Ware’s retort to your recent platitudes about Iraq going oh so well?
Michael Ware: “I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he’s completely lost the plot or he knows he’s spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he’s not talking about any country I’ve ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.”
Add to all this your recent failure to cover fellow Democratic Senator Barack Obama’s back when John McCain went beserk about political reform. You chose to go with McCain.
Joe, I find it confounding that you once said you went through a Bob Dylan phase. Robert Zimmerman sang this many years ago and it’s never more true than today. Joe, go back and listen:
“…Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’…”
You are a very decent man Joe. Much of your voting record is good. But you’re in over your head breaking bread and hangin’ with those who only wish to divide, conquer and make a quick gazillion doing so. End your fixation for lending credence to the haters, the liars, the exploiters. And stop being the media go-to person for criticizing your fellow Democrats. Or simply become a Republican if the current GOP lords and masters are so enviable.
Best of all, bow out. Get some accolades and well wishes and then step aside for Ned Lamont:
