Joe Lieberman Sticks a Shiv in his Friend
Although I’m now an Obama supporter, many readers know it took me a long time to get to this point. One of my biggest arguments against Obama was that he was too quick to move to the center. After all, this is the guy who embraced Joe Liberman has his “mentor” in the Senate:
Hence Vietor’s sensitivity to the allusion in my column to Obama’s “mentor” being Senator Joe Lieberman. As a freshman senator, Vietor insisted, Obama had been assigned Lieberman as mentor. Read the Hartford Courant and you’ll find Lieberman boasting that Obama picked him.
Either way, it’s obvious that Obama could have brokered a different mentor if he’d so desired, the same way he could have declined to go and tout for Lieberman at that Democratic Party dinner in Connecticut at the end of March. But he clearly didn’t, because he wanted to send out a reassuring signal, in the same way he’s doing with his PAC, the Hopefund, which is raising money for fourteen of his senate colleagues. According to BlackCommentator, ten of them are DLC–half the DLC presence in the Senate.
Furthermore, during the 2006 election, when there was an opportunity to get rid of Holy Joe, Obama went out of his way to support his friend and mentor:
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama rallied Connecticut Democrats at their annual dinner Thursday night, throwing his support behind mentor and Senate colleague Joe Lieberman.
Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is considered a rising star in the party, was the keynote speaker at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner.
Lieberman, Connecticut’s junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.
Some at Thursday’s dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman’s success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.
Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the “elephant in the room” but praising Lieberman’s intellect, character and qualifications.
“The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I’m going to go ahead and say it,” Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.
“I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf,” he said.
And what has Holy Joe, friend and mentor to Obama done in return? Looks to me like he fashioned himself a shiv:
What a royal asshole Joe Lieberman is. He should have his committee assignments taken from him. Unfortunately, the Senate is run by another Royal Asshole: Hapless Harry Reid.
With friends like Joe Lieberman, who needs enemies?
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