I’m pretty ignorant of all the current disdain for Joe Lieberman, though I find it especially interesting considering the guy was a few chads away from being our (current?) VP. Anyway, for those who aren’t so ignorant, I was wondering what you hate about him.
I don’t consider it valid criticism that he’s “switched sides” and joined up with the GOP on so many issues. …Okay, I DO think it’s valid criticism, but if he’s simply following his beliefs, then it’s no reason to degrade him any more than any other politician whom you disagree with.
So what specific opinions or actions have gotten ol’ Joe on your nerves? Besides his voice, that is? Why should I be mad at him?
The Neoconservative wing of the post-Goldwater conservative movement is entirely committed to support for Israel under any and all circumstances; and so is Lieberman for all relevant reasons good and bad; and under current circumstances. that is good and sufficient reason to hate him even and especially if you’re Jewish.
Some liberal types think he’s too conservative and that he doesn’t vote the party line. Many don’t like him because he supported (and afaik still supports) the war in Iraq, and they see that as a betrayal or some such.
Personally, I’m neutral about ole Joe myself…but that’s those are the main reasons folks around these parts generally don’t like Jumpin Joe.
I don’t like him because he claims to be a Democrat, but behaves like a Republican including campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate. If that is the way he feels, he should switch parties and try to run for his seat with an R by his name instead of a D (good luck).
I’ll credit Lieberman with the fact that he’s genuinely following his beliefs - it’s not like many people are supporting the war in Iraq to increase their popularity. But nonetheless, many people now oppose the way Iraq is going and disagree with Lieberman on that issue.
As for party loyalty, Lieberman was a Democrat up until very recntly and he still caucuses with them. Despite this he is actively trying to get a Republican elected President.
Most people feel that if you’re going this far in the direction of the Republican platform the honest thing to do would be to openly switch parties.
I despise the man’s politics for the following reasons: He runs as a Democrat, but is not with us on important issues such as the war.
He is a neo-conservative and he acts as if his state is Tel Aviv and he is a Likudist, and not a Dem from Connecticut. Lowell Weicker was a more loyal Dem when he was a Republican. It is not his job to represent Israel in the U.S. that is the job of Israel’s ambassador. We have a lot of Jewish Senators and Congresspersons who do not have this bizarre perspective. As someone who supports Israel, I think neo-conservatism in America is the biggest danger to Israel’s existence. I put America before Israel, and neo-conservatism is the biggest threat to America in my opinion.
Joe acted all sanctimonious about Bill Clinton’s infidelity. I can’t help it if Joe has never strayed, and yeah for that, but it caused Gore to use Joe to try to distance himself from that. Joe should have got us Florida, but his debate with Cheney was a lay down, and his public demand for Gore to concede was a rank betrayal. Joe was never loyal to Gore in that election or he would have delivered another 1000 votes in Florida. Joe has since shown that he prefers Bush and Cheney and there is no reason to believe that he didn’t at the time. In short, I think he deliberately did everything he could to throw the election.
He is the number 1 anti-video game Senator. This criterion may be simplistic, but it still distinguishes him. Everything else is shared with many politicians, and are somewhat secondary.
What I can’t stand about him is his insatiable desire, as though he’s convinced his legacy will be fondly defined by it, and rationalized with tortured logic, to begin preemptive military strikes on Iran. The man is freaking nuts, but he has power, and the ear of others who also wield it, which makes him dangerous.
Holy Joe just needs to retire already before he, and the current cadre of neocon crazies, gets us into another war without end…freaking chicken hawk.
Because the hawkish policies, such as bombing Iran, threaten the existence of Israel in the judgment of some thinking people. But hate is too strong a word, despise his policy positions is better.
The irony is of course that Democrats are SUPPOSED to embrace diversity. I don’t recall that to be a ‘good Democrat’ you HAVE to be a liberal…or that being against the Iraqi war is part of agenda. I guess though if you aren’t in lock-step with the left wing (does the irony burn for those of you who think the same thing about the conservative wing of the Republicans? It should…) you aren’t a REAL Democrat, no matter what your voting record is.
I’m actually a bit repelled by some of the sentiments expressed here…and I have to admit I’m damn glad I’m NOT a Democrat with such narrow minded attitudes. I guess this is why I don’t vote for either of the big two parties in national elections.
What is amusing to me is to hear some Democrats try and claim that their party isn’t about being liberal (party of diversity and all that happy horseshit), or having a liberal agenda…while attempting to disassociate itself from a guy who WANTS to be a Democrat (despite being torpedoed by his own party in his re-election bid) but is ‘conservative’ (I actually think he’s pretty moderate all things considered…but I can understand how folks around these parts see being moderate as equal to conservative). What comes best to my mind at the moment is ‘A pox on both your houses’…that rather nicely sums up my thoughts on both Democrats and Republicans.
I think Lieberman has gone past the point of just being out of the Democratic mainstream. He’s run against actual Democrats (admittedly he was also running against a Republican) and he’s endorsed and is supporting a Republican Presidential candidate over the Democratic one. Diversity is one thing; but the Democratic Party doesn’t have a GOP wing. As I wrote above, Lieberman should do the honest thing and join the Republican Party if that’s where his beliefs have led him.
Judaism is a scirptural religion, which means a goy familiar with the relevant scriptures has as much right as any rabbi to pass moral judgment, and on that basis I say what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is immoral and indefensible by (contemporary, not Biblical, Og forbid) Jewish moral and spirirual standards. And I’ve known many Jews who felt the same way.
It’s funny how in the thread about electing a Jewish President no-one understood why I thought that a Jewish President would have a hard time because he would be not Zionist enough for some and too Zionist to others. And yet, here we have a brand new thread, illustrating precisely my point.
Why is it that people not in the party are always defining what they want of that party. Very respectfully, you aren’t a member of the organization, which is a private, non-governmental organization, and you are certainly entitled to your opinion on what the members of the organization should be like, but we have the right to differ with your opinion. I think only liberals and moderates should belong to the party of which I am a member. That’s my opinion. We are partisans, not fence sitters. That’s part of our heritage of liberty, to espouse a position and associate with whom we want and not associate and accept into our confidence those we disagree with.
We are partisans because we support particular policies and oppose others, and we organize to further our ends. If you find that distasteful, I don’t blame you. But as Winston Churchill once observed: democracy is the worst form of government in the world, except fo all the others.
Keeping the people who are shooting rockets at your house and blowing up busses and resteraunts out of your goddamned country is defensible by contemperary moral standards. Whether you personally agree with the defense is irrelevant.
In America, nobody says it’s morally indefensible to screen people entering the country from Columbia more thoroughly than people entering the country from Canada. The only difference between what Israel is doing and what everyone else does is that the stakes are higher there than they are here.
Lieberman didn’t like me first. I’m an atheist, and hence the Constitution wasn’t meant for me, and I am incapable of morality.
“John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people… George Washington warned us never to indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” -Joseph Lieberman
In addition to what the others have said, I’ll toss out another. Orthodox Judaism is - IMO - too irrational of a philosophy for me to support an individual holding such views.
I would no longer vote for an Orthodox Jew than a Scientologist, Mormon, or adherent to other religions I consider “extreme.”
That is, of course, if the person in question did not closely match my positions on other key issues - which Joe (and most religious extremnists) does not.
I understand that in our current culture, in order to be elected president a candidate must at least profess some acceptance of a mainstream christian faith. But I place a huge value on “clear thinking” and rationality in a president. And if a candidate claims to believe a faith that I consider especially irrational, well, I question whether that will carry over to his handling of other matters.
I say if you’re going around campaigning for the Republican nominee and attacking the Democratic nominee, then you aren’t a REAL Democrat.
He wasn’t “torpedoed,” he lost an election. This attitude bugs the hell out of me. He’s been chosen as a representative of the people of Connecticut. When they decide that they’d rather have someone else representing them, that’s called democracy.
Embracing diversity within the Democratic party does not involve embracing Republicans. And Leiberman’s betrayal of Gore during the Florida debacle still haunts me. Too bad it doesn’t haunt him.
By the way–the correct quotation is “A plague on both your houses.” Spoken by the dying Mercutio.