Joe Lieberman sucks

I lived in Connecticut until 1995. In that time, I voted against two Democrats. One was a local race in New Haven; I voted for my friend Lisa Valentovish. She was a Republican, but not one of the sucky ones.

I also voted against Joe Lieberman when he ran for Senate. I voted for Lowell Weicker, a decision I am prouder of every year. Weicker was a Republican, and he was more liberal than Lieberman. Lieberman's campaign was backed by William F. Buckley. Weicker later broke from his party completely and won election as governor as an independent. He was truly beholden to no one, from the time he bucked his party and demanded the truth of what Nixon had done in the Watergate scandal.

Lieberman was always an annoying, moralistic scold. A jackass, and not in the good MTV sense of a guy who staples his scrotum to his thigh for a TV show. The type of jackass who cares so much about what's right that he will throw Clinton overboard while still expecting his support years later. We all gritted our teeth when Holy Joe was added to the Gore ticket in 2000 as a way to shore up the Jewish vote in Fairfield County.

And still, he's at it. He has consistently spoken out in favor of Bush's war in Iraq, which shows that he will take the wrong position and stick with it, even when it puts the House elections in danger. He is adopting this "bipartisan" line, which over the past 12 years has translated to "do whatever Republicans say or we'll start rumors that you're gay." This is truly the worst part of his act. He has taken several substantive steps away from women's reproductive rights under the cloak of "bipartisanship." He really tries to uphold Bush's "uniter, not divider" line, when we've all seen what a crock of crap it is. I just don't know whether he's really stupid and is getting played, or if he's so sinister that he's trying to save his cushy job at the expense of his views. The third possibility is that he is setting himself up for a Unity '08 run for president, where he plays the role of the Republican who pretends he's not.

Any way you slice it, Lieberman, Buckley's favorite Democrat, has been the wrong guy since 1990.