Jewish Dem ire boils over on Lieberman

[babylonsister]

Jewish Dem ire boils over on Lieberman
By Jared Allen and Manu Raju
Posted: 07/09/08 07:51 PM


Jewish Democrats are anxious that Sen. Joe Lieberman’s support for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) will hurt their own nominee’s chances with voters of their faith.

Their increasing frustration came to a head Wednesday when liberal activists and bloggers dropped off a petition calling for Democratic leaders to remove Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut who caucuses with the Democrats, as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the next Congress. The petition contained 43,000 signatures.

But their frustration also has been building for months. And many of them have silently gritted their teeth while one of the most well-known Jewish members of Congress, who served as their vice presidential candidate in 2000, has sought to drive Jews even further from presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

“Joe Lieberman, a friend of mine, just sees life differently,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said recently. “And so it’s too bad. We miss him.”

Lautenberg has been one of the most vocal Jewish lawmakers working to refute Lieberman’s claims that McCain, not Obama, offers the best path on dealing with Iran and securing the safety of Israel.

more...

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/jewish-dem-ire-boils-over-on-lieberman-2008-07-09.html