oh, Joe.

[sisyphusshrugged]

Senator Lieberman was against the war while he was for it

Embattled Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman - facing a possible primary defeat Tuesday because of his strong backing for the Iraq war - yesterday launched a Hail Mary attack on the Bush administration's handling of the war.
"I supported our war in Iraq but I have always questioned the way it was being executed," Lieberman said.

"This administration took far too many shortcuts. We continue to suffer the consequences, as do the Iraqi people."

which makes me, at least, wonder: Senator, don't you think that's a little irresponsible?

“To me, bipartisan foreign policy means a mutual effort under our indispensable two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”

Those last words of Vandenberg’s exactly describe the goals and methods of the Islamist terrorists who attacked us on 9-11-01 and fight us in Iraq today. They aim to “divide and conquer us and the free world.” Vandenburg’s preceding words defining a bipartisan foreign policy should remind us of how much stronger we would be in this critical fight if we “seek national security ahead of partisan advantage.”

That is why I feel so strongly that it is time for us to set aside for now the arguments about why we got into Iraq so that we can work together on how we can get out best in victory and honor with the job done.

With the consequences of victory or defeat in Iraq so large for our future safety, and liberty; and with the lives of 160,000 Americans in uniform on the line there everyday, it is urgent that all of us who want to complete our mission successfully and do not favor an arbitrary timetable for withdrawal put the national goals we hold in common ahead of the party labels that too often divide us.

I recall here the wisdom of Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, who served our country during World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Stimson said that sometimes the best way to make a person trustworthy is to trust him. There is wisdom there. It is time that America’s leaders, in the White House and Congress, Republicans and Democrats, who agree on our goals in Iraq but disagree on tactics to start trusting each other again so that we can work together again. The distrust is deep and I know it will be difficult to overcome, but history will judge us harshly if we do not stretch across the divide of distrust and join together to complete our mission successfully in Iraq.

It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

because like it said in the Wall Street Journal,

I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory...

Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.

You may have heard about that article, Senator. Our Fearless Leader quoted from it at some length to defend his conduct of the war. So did the vice president. White House put out a press release about it.

They must not have noticed you were being critical.

Comments

[paraleipsis.livejournal.com]

Dont look now, but you've got a tag open.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

sigh.

[cosmicbob.livejournal.com]

The thing is, this asshole is so fixated on himself that he will wreck the election for Democrats by running as an independant rather than accept the results of the primary.

Republicans are rubbing their hands in glee! Because if Lieberman wins the primary, they get him back, basically a Republican in everything but name and if he loses the Republicans will probably win the seat in a three way race.

Selfish asshole!

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

It all depends whether or not the Rs can force their candidate out. They might not want to now.

In the mean time, he goes into an independent run with no institutional support and a lot of folks (and unions) who have been supporting him moving over and supporting Lamont.

Look at it this way: if you're, say, Hillary or Kerry (who, by the way, Lieberman bashed for insufficient fervor on Israel in the course of praising Bush on Israel in the final days of the last presidential race) and you need to do something to achieve a rapprochement with all us foamy-mouthed liberals who don't like their war (which is to say most of America) and you don't want to change your stand on the war because you're an important Democrat so you kinda don't get it, what easier way than standing with Lamont?

After all, it would neatly make the Vote for me even though you don't like my views because I'm a Democrat argument that seems to be the raison d'etre of most of our current crop of consultants.

These are not going to be good days for Al From and Marshall Wittmann.