...and just what he has accomplished for the people of Connecticut, for the country and for the democratic party?
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August 09, 2006
Lieberman deserved defeat, so what will the Clintons do now?
That's the question that all Democrats who supported Joe Lieberman need to answer.
Joe Lieberman deserved defeat,<.....> "To be 'strong on national security' does not mean supporting the misconceived and incompetently executed policies of the Bush administration. American security in years to come will depend, in fact, on undoing this government’s grave mistakes, which have weakened this country’s military posture and undermined support for us around the world."
The war aside, Lieberman merely poses as a Democratic "progressive." Kari Chisholm of Blue Oregon argues that progressives are wasting their energy "defeating a guy who is better than every single incumbent Republican...", and then cites Lieberman's voting record to prove it. Well, as the Republicans have demonstrated with their "minimum wage vote", voting records don't tell the whole story.
Take the bankruptcy bill, for example, which Lieberman voted against, then boasted about to prove his "progressive" bona fides. Here's the rest of the story:
"You see, Lieberman voted to close debate on the bankruptcy bill--a vote where 41 votes against would have stopped the bill dead. He only voted against the bill on the final passage vote, where 51 votes were needed to stop it. This way Lieberman can truthfully assure his banking-industry contributors that he did the heavy lifting in order to make sure that the bill passed."
At heart, Lieberman is a corporate shill. He has supported deregulation, free trade, globalization --NAFTA, et al--, the pharmaceutical industry, banking, insurance, big energy. He has spoken positively about schools vouchers and social security privatization. On the other hand, in his 18 year Senate career, he has never advocated for national health insurance, perhaps the best indicator of progressive leanings.
<more>
http://joesschool.blogs.com/olsononline/2006/08/lieberm...