Joseph Lieberman Dies

Joseph Lieberman had died at age 82.

Erik Loomis, who soon will have 1600 grave posts (visits graves of historical figures and writes about them), is not someone who believes you have to "not speak ill of the dead." His obituary was as expected. 

Lieberman appeared in front of the Supreme Court back in 1984 to defend a Sabbath exemption law. It was struck down 8-1 as too much of an absolute benefit to religion. His appearance was a mostly dull affair though in line with his reputation as religiously orthodox. Prof. Loomis notes he divorced his first wife because she was not orthodox enough.

A liberal Republican senator led William Buckley Jr. (the conservative who was concerned about lax Christianity) to support Lieberman's campaign for senator. Early on, at least in my memory, what stood out about him was his Droopy Dog character and sounding like a scold. 

This was a major reason why Gore chose him as vice president, to show Gore was different than that dog (of a different sort) Bill Clinton. People still are saying that if the Florida senator had been chosen instead, the Democrats would have won Florida. Who knows. All I will say there is that Bush v. Gore was not a 7-2 opinion.  

Liberals really got upset at Lieberman during the Bush presidency, including his hardline in the War on Terror and support of the Iraq War. 

For instance, we can flashback to the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. Alberto Gonzales was a major target during the Bush years, including as a general Bush crony. To quote a NYT opinion cited on this blog at the time: 

Republican senators argued that it was unfair to say Mr. Gonzales was personally responsible for the specific acts of torture and degradation at Abu Ghraib. That would be a fair defense if anyone were doing that. The Democrats simply said, rightly, that Mr. Gonzales was one of the central architects of the administration's policy of evading legal restrictions on the treatment of prisoners. He should not have been rewarded with one of the most important jobs in the cabinet.

Lieberman was one of the few Democrats who voted for him. Opposition to the Bush Administration helped Democrats march back to congressional control, eventually having a short-lived sixty vote majority in the Senate. 

The 2006 election brought a liberal challenger to Lieberman, Ned Lamont (currently governor of Connecticut). As I noted at the time, this was seen as some big travesty. How dare people badmouth a sitting Democrat like this? Defending your own is not too surprising on some level. Sen. Gillibrand, for instance, opposed AOC when she ran against a long-sitting representative. 

I supported the Ned Lamont challenge largely since I thought it important in primaries to push from the left. Lamont ultimately won the primary. Lieberman decided to run as an independent. This disgusted me at the time. The Democratic voters spoke, and he said, "FU to the Party." 

Lieberman won as the de facto Republican candidate. There was an actual Republican candidate. He got a small amount of the vote. To add insult to injury, the Democrats (partially since it was a 51/49 Senate) did not penalize him for challenging the Democratic nominee. 

I do not suggest here Joe Lieberman was just a Republican. Even Erik Loomis grants:

To his credit, I guess, Lieberman was decent on some social issues. He generally supported same-sex marriage, cosponsored the 1990 Clean Air Act, and voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But for a Connecticut Democrat, those votes should have been standard fare, not the exception to an otherwise awful career.

Lieberman was one of the few Democrats who blocked a public option (basically letting people an option to have a Medicaid-like health insurance) in the Affordable Care Act fight. He's one of those Democrats who stop things and people blame "Democrats" for it.  Still, even there, he did vote for the final bill unlike every single Republican senator. 

The biggest act of turncoat-ery was his support of John McCain for president in 2008. At the time, William Buckley Jr.'s son came out against McCain to support the side of sanity. 

As Erik Loomis notes, he continued to be a tool when he finally left the Senate after he won his Lieberman for Lieberman Party race:

In 2013, he joined the American Enterprise Institute to run something called the American Internationalism Project with Jon Kyl. He occasionally showed up to Yeshiva University to teach a class. He continued to shake the militarism bells against Iran, attempting to undermine President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and even led a rally outside of Kirsten Gillibrand’s office to get her to oppose the deal, which failed. 

He endorsed Hillary Clinton (why not? she was something of a hardliner on foreign policy issues). Nonetheless, once Trump won, he still continued to support conservatives. He introduced Betsy DeVos in her confirmation as Education Secretary. At least Neal Katyal had a reason to support Neil Gorsuch because he would show up in front of him regularly.  

Oh well. I guess No Labels will have to find another candidate. If this is not enough about Lieberman, insert "Lieberman" in the search box, and you can read about my thoughts about him over the years.