Rick Hertzberg thinks Lieberman is a bit of a putz. He's right, of course. And he explains why in his
post. Here is the best demonstration of hypocrisy yet leveled at Lieberman:
Admittedly, I have strongly disliked Lieberman ever since he cemented his bogus reputation for “integrity” by denouncing Bill Clinton’s supposed lack of family values during the Lewinsky fiasco. I thought the denunciation was—what’s the word?—inappropriate, coming from a man who not only divorced his first wife while their children were at highly vulnerable ages (just past puberty) but also had the gall to attribute the divorce to the insufficient piety of his wife. In other words, he was too good for her.
Read the whole thing...
Joe the Senator
Now it’s John McCain’s turn to discover what sort of “friend” Joe Lieberman is. Via Andrew, Mark Pazniokas reports in today’s Hartford Courant:Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, one of John McCain’s closest political allies, said Friday he does not believe that Barack Obama is unprepared to be president.
“I’m saying he is less prepared than McCain,” Lieberman said.
But what about Sarah Palin?
Is she ready?
“If, God forbid, an accident occurs or something of that kind?” Lieberman said. “Um, she’ll be ready. You know, she’s had executive experience. She’s smart and she will have had on-the-job training.”…
“[McCain] is ready to be our president at this very difficult time,” Lieberman said. “And Sen. Obama is not as ready. It’s as direct as that.”
Not as ready. Sweet.
That little word—“as”—is supposed to be Lieberman’s life jacket, I guess, now that the SS McCain looks like it’s going glug glug glug and may not, after all, be seaworthy enough to deliver its chaplain to that big corner office in the Pentagon. Google “lieberman obama ‘not ready’” if you need a few thousand samples of the unqualified way Joe talked about Barack’s before the ship hit the iceberg.
Admittedly, I have strongly disliked Lieberman ever since he cemented his bogus reputation for “integrity” by denouncing Bill Clinton’s supposed lack of family values during the Lewinsky fiasco. I thought the denunciation was—what’s the word?—inappropriate, coming from a man who not only divorced his first wife while their children were at highly vulnerable ages (just past puberty) but also had the gall to attribute the divorce to the insufficient piety of his wife. In other words, he was too good for her.
That was just garden-variety hypocrisy. He did far worse when he was Gore’s running mate, as I explained two years ago.
Lieberman’s embrace of the neoconservative position on the Iraq war is evidently sincere. If he really believes that the nation’s survival depends on “victory” in Iraq, that is sufficient reason for him to endorse McCain. But it doesn’t explain his willingness to debase himself by promulgating Hannity-type talking points.
