This just in: Lowell Weicker thinks Joementum needs a new job in private industry, because he thinks Lieberman’s government service as a Democratic Senator has gone sadly off track:
December 5, 2005, 6:35 PM EST
HARTFORD, Conn. — Former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. said Monday that Sen. Joe Lieberman deserves a stiff challenge in next year’s re-election campaign, though he said he would not take up a grudge match against the Democrat who ousted him from the U.S. Senate in 1988.
Speaking at a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Hartford, Weicker took numerous swings at Lieberman and President Bush over the Iraq war.
The bad news is that Weicker isn’t announcing his candidacy as a Democrat. The good news is that he’s clearly invested in supporting a primary challenge to the leading Democrat-in-Name-Only in the US Senate: Joseph “Bush Kisser” Lieberman. I’m not one generally for bashing Democratic office holders, but Lieberman, with his support for Bush’s insane misadventure in Iraq, and for his continual back-stabbing of the progressive agenda in this country, is a special case.
So for your reading pleasure, more Joementum bashing by Weicker after the break.
“I have seen this country propagandized into war,” Weicker said. “It’s now a second wave of propagandizing, with the president taking the stump, joined by persons like Senator Joe Lieberman.”
. . . Weicker said U.S. troops should be removed from Iraq in six months to a year.
“I support the troops. I do not support the commander in chief,” he said.
Of Lieberman, he said: “I disagree 100 percent with the position he has taken on this war. The nation does not need a Democrat to second the president’s policy.”
Weicker, who acquired a reputation as a maverick even before leaving the GOP two years after his stunning loss to Lieberman to form A Connecticut Party and win the governor’s office, said more candidates who are unaffiliated with either major party should seek public office.
Weicker, 74, said he will not challenge Lieberman, though he did not slam the door entirely on the possibility he will seek back the job he held for 18 years.
“You’re not going to tell somebody in politics for 32 years you have no interest at all,” he said. “I would hope, however, that the Democratic party exercises some choices.”
Others in the Democratic Party who are considering a race have called him seeking his support, he said after his 15-minute talk. Weicker did not identify them.
The war in Iraq will be the primary issue, he said. “It’s the war. Make no mistake about it.”
He derided Democrats as “a bunch of wimps” who are as bad as Bush.
“It’s a one-party deal. That’s what we’ve come to,” Weicker said.
Hear! Hear! My question? Why does it take a former maverick Republican to be speaking out against this war in Connecticut? Aren’t there Connecticut Dems willing to step up and oppose Joe? I sure hope someone does, and soon.
