My LTTE: Lieberman ‘willing to sell his soul’ for victory

[Larkspur]

This was published in my local paper -- Killingly Villager. It's the 2nd LTTE from the top. The Villager endorsed Lieberman in the primary and runs right of center.

Lieberman ‘willing to sell his soul’ for victory

If Sen. Joe Lieberman is a good Democrat and a man of integrity, why has he retained one of George W. Bush's top fund-raisers, Melvin Sembler (washingtonpost.com)?

While he was ambassador to Italy, Melvin Sembler persuaded his hometown Congressman, Bill Young (R-Fla.), who was then chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, to pass a bill through Congress to purchase and refurbish — at U.S. taxpayer expense — a multi-million dollar mansion in Rome. This mansion was annexed by the U.S. embassy in Italy, and was designated by that bill as the "Mel Sembler Building" (washingtonpost.com).

If this isn't blatant cronyism and corruption, what is? If Sembler can easily convince his congressman to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to buy a mansion and name it after himself, what does this well-connected Republican operative expect from a proud Sen. Lieberman, who's desperate to win re-election?

Melvin Sembler is most notorious for founding the infamous juvenile rehab business Straight Incorporated (alternet.org), which employed Chinese and North Korean brainwashing and interrogation tactics against troubled American teens. After a series of civil and criminal lawsuits (thestraights.com), Straight Incorporated folded. But, like a cancerous tumor that metastasizes before its removed from the body, offshoots of his business morphed into other similar businesses around the country and into the Drug Free America Foundation, which boasts Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his wife as advisory board members.

Why is Sen. Lieberman, in his reckless pursuit of fund-raising help for his re-election bid, willing to make Faustian deals with corrupt and shady characters like Melvin Sembler? Wise men have said, "It does not profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul." Why is Sen. Lieberman willing to sell his soul for the U.S. Senate seat? <br>

[NewJeffCT]

1. excellent letter

I think Engelhart, the editorial cartoonist in the Courant, had Lieberman pegged when he had a weathervane attached to Lieberman's head - whichever way the wind is blowing is Joe's position on a given issue...

My wife's recent LTTE also had the weathervane idea - if you don't like Lieberman's position on an issue, wait a minute, and he'll change it.