I was sorry to learn of the sudden death of 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman. But his long and stormy career did offer some important lessons about party loyalty, which I wrote about at New York:
Joe Lieberman was active in politics right up to the end. The former senator was the founding co-chair of the nonpartisan group No Labels, which is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign on behalf of a yet-to-be-identified bipartisan “unity ticket.” Lieberman did not live to see whether No Labels will run a candidate. He died on Wednesday at 82 due to complications from a fall. But this last political venture was entirely in keeping with his long career as a self-styled politician of the pragmatic center, which often took him across party boundaries.
Lieberman’s first years in Connecticut Democratic politics as a state legislator and then state attorney general were reasonably conventional. He was known for a particular interest in civil rights and environmental protection, and his identity as an observant Orthodox Jew also drew attention. But in 1988, the Democrat used unconventional tactics in his challenge to Republican U.S. senator Lowell Weicker. Lieberman positioned himself to the incumbent’s right on selected issues, like Ronald Reagan’s military operations against Libya and Grenada. He also capitalized on longtime conservative resentment of his moderate opponent, winning prized endorsements from William F. and James Buckley, icons of the right. Lieberman won the race narrowly in an upset.
Almost immediately, Senator Lieberman became closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The group of mostly moderate elected officials focused on restoring the national political viability of a party that had lost five of the six previous presidential elections; it soon produced a president in Bill Clinton. Lieberman became probably the most systematically pro-Clinton (or in the parlance of the time, “New Democrat”) member of Congress. This gave his 1998 Senate speech condemning the then-president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal as “immoral” and “harmful” a special bite. He probably did Clinton a favor by setting the table for a reprimand that fell short of impeachment and removal, but without question, the narrative was born of Lieberman being disloyal to his party.
Perhaps it was his public scolding of Clinton that convinced Al Gore, who was struggling to separate himself from his boss’s misconduct, to lift Lieberman to the summit of his career. Gore tapped the senator to be his running mate in the 2000 election, making him the first Jewish vice-presidential candidate of a major party. He was by all accounts a disciplined and loyal running mate, at least until that moment during the Florida recount saga when he publicly disclaimed interest in challenging late-arriving overseas military ballots against the advice of the Gore campaign. You could argue plausibly that the ticket would have never been in a position to potentially win the state without Lieberman’s appeal in South Florida to Jewish voters thrilled by his nomination to become vice-president. But many Democrats bitter about the loss blamed Lieberman.
As one of the leaders of the “Clintonian” wing of his party, Lieberman was an early front-runner for the 2004 presidential nomination. A longtime supporter of efforts to topple Saddam Hussein, Lieberman had voted to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his campaign rivals John Kerry and John Edwards and other notable senators including Hillary Clinton. Unlike most other Democrats, though, Lieberman did not back off this position when the Iraq War became a deadly quagmire. Ill-aligned with his party to an extent he did not seem to perceive, his presidential campaign quickly flamed out, but not before he gained enduring mockery for claiming “Joe-mentum” from a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.
Returning to the Senate, Lieberman continued his increasingly lonely support for the Iraq War (alongside other heresies to liberalism, such as his support for private-school education vouchers in the District of Columbia). In 2006, Lieberman drew a wealthy primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who soon had a large antiwar following in Connecticut and nationally. As the campaign grew heated, President George W. Bush gave his Democratic war ally a deadly gift by embracing him and kissing his cheek after the State of the Union Address. This moment, memorialized as “The Kiss,” became central to the Lamont campaign’s claim that Lieberman had left his party behind, and the challenger narrowly won the primary. However, Lieberman ran against him in the general election as an independent, with significant back-channel encouragement from the Bush White House (which helped prevent any strong Republican candidacy). Lieberman won a fourth and final term in the Senate with mostly GOP and independent votes. He was publicly endorsed by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, among others from what had been the enemy camp.
The 2006 repudiation by his party appeared to break something in Lieberman. This once-happiest of happy political warriors, incapable of holding a grudge, seemed bitter, or at the very least gravely offended, even as he remained in the Senate Democratic Caucus (albeit as formally independent). When his old friend and Iraq War ally John McCain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Lieberman committed a partisan sin by endorsing him. His positioning between the two parties, however, still cost him dearly: McCain wanted to choose him as his running mate, before the Arizonan’s staff convinced him that Lieberman’s longtime pro-choice views and support for LGBTQ rights would lead to a convention revolt. The GOP nominee instead went with a different “high-risk, high-reward” choice: Sarah Palin.
After Barack Obama’s victory over Lieberman’s candidate, the new Democratic president needed every Democratic senator to enact the centerpiece of his agenda, the Affordable Care Act. He got Lieberman’s vote — but only after the senator, who represented many of the country’s major private-insurance companies, forced the elimination of the “public option” in the new system. It was a bitter pill for many progressives, who favored a more robust government role in health insurance than Obama had proposed.
By the time Lieberman chose to retire from the Senate in 2012, he was very near to being a man without a party, and he reflected that status by refusing to endorse either Obama or Mitt Romney that year. By then, he was already involved in the last great project of his political career, No Labels. He did, with some hesitation, endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. But his long odyssey away from the yoke of the Democratic Party had largely landed him in a nonpartisan limbo. Right up until his death, he was often the public face of No Labels, particularly after the group’s decision to sponsor a presidential ticket alienated many early supporters of its more quotidian efforts to encourage bipartisan “problem-solving” in Congress.
Some will view Lieberman as a victim of partisan polarization, and others as an anachronistic member of a pro-corporate, pro-war bipartisan elite who made polarization necessary. Personally, I will remember him as a politician who followed — sometimes courageously, sometimes foolishly — a path that made him blind to the singular extremism that one party has exhibited throughout the 21st century, a development he tried to ignore to his eventual marginalization. But for all his flaws, I have no doubt Joe Lieberman remained until his last breath committed to the task he often cited via the Hebrew term tikkun olam: repairing a broken world.
And besides, this thread is about whether Kerry should declare an exit strategy – and I agree that we shouldn’t expose ourselves to republican mud throwing by advocating cutting and running. In my opinion, the exit strategy should be to share the pain by bringing in as many other countries as we can manage.
” It stands, however, that we could have won if the president would have allowed us to instead of following containment.”
NeoFascist: I appreciate that you are trying to debate with us in a polite way, but I would urge you to read a book or two about Vietnam (and the Clinton administration as well, since you don’t remember “no exit strategy” as one of the two top reasons republicans opposed every military action that Clinton took) before you try and make arguments. I can assure you that the United States Army does not teach its soldiers that the Vietnam War was winnable. We were trying to prop up a corrupt government that did not have any support from the South Vietnamese people. So far from making any inroads in defeating North Vietnan, we never even set foot over the border, since we were too busy fighting north vietnamese soldiers, and south vietnamese sympathizers, inside of South Vietnam. Just to declare that we could have won does not constitute an argument, and does not correspond to the opinion of any military analyst currently working for the United States Armed Forces.
IMHO – it is way too early for Kerry to get very specific about how he plans to pull out. Kerry very well may be the next president, but he is not president yet and he has no power to act on any plan. If he pushes for an E-X-I-T he very well may incite more violence from the people who want us gone yesterday. And, as a Vietnam vet, he is unwilling to encourage further unnecessary bloodshed. The best he can do now is push Bush to do things that lessen the risks our soldiers face. When victory becomes more certain, he can get more specific.
frankly0 wrote:
“What I believe most Americans really want is to feel good about how America has acted in Iraq. We want to feel some measure of real PRIDE in who we are as Americans, and what we have done abroad. For many of us, perhaps the worst part of the Bush administration behavior in Iraq is that it has shamed us as a nation — and the prisoner abuse is most inescapable example. We need to feel that these problems have been corrected,. That is more important to us as a nation than whether our foray into Iraq happens to succeed or fail.
What Kerry CAN do, and DOES have real control over, is see to it that the US acts honorably in Iraq, so that we can restore our sense of national pride.
I think it is far more important, even politically, for Kerry to address this problem than it is to find an exit strategy out of Iraq.”
I think these are perceptive comments. I hadn’t made the link between supporting Kerry and restoring our national honor but I think frankly0 is right that Bush has both dishonored our country and that many Americans feel that way, or at minimum that he has deeply let them down.
I can’t agree, though, that Kerry has any ability to control whether the US acts honorably–not until he’s in the White House, that is. Until then he’s only able to talk about what he would do.
And I am not sure I think Kerry would help himself by going on the offensive with this point.
But what I suspect will happen is that the Bush campaign will give him an opening to make this argument at some point later in the campaign when it will matter most–with either an over-the-top charge of the sort they are now justly famous for, or an atrociously off-the-mark attempt to brag about what a great job they’re doing in the war on terror. This argument is an arrow I hope he keeps in his quiver until the time is right. A bit of well-timed righteous indignation, perhaps in one of the debates, could help.
Today I took one small step to try to communicate a message associating Kerry with restoration of our national honor. For the first time in my life (I turned 45 yesterday) I attached a small American flag decal to my car bumper sticker–placing it right next to my Kerry bumper sticker.
Finally, to any readers who are veterans I wish to say: thank you.
PS there is one more thing: it’s more important to understand when Bush lost the Iraqis… Juan Cole says it was mid-March, when the USA supported the Israeli bombing of Yassin.
Ugh, I hate to tack a comment on at the end of this… when things have gone so far OT… but the best exit strategy would be one tied to a democratic vote by the Iraqis. Say that we would have a referendum in Jan 2005 where the Iraqis would get to vote on whether we stay or go, and what the timetable would be.
By leaving it up in the air, Bush is encouraging the political contenders to engage in a competition of who says we should leave sooner. Kerry can’t control that, but he can leave it up to the people who ultimately decide it either way.
Either they control us democratically or they will control us with their support for the rebels.
All-out war in Vietnam and we would have faced the very strong likelihood of fighting the Red Army, which would have consequently involved surrender or nuclear weapons. Only imperialists play with such odds. And only American leaders have been so conquest-driven. The American people aren’t. If you are defending yourself, you don’t need an exit strategy. If you are the initiator, read aggressor, you either have to have an exit strategy or a blindly supportive populace. When Americans think they have been attacked and provoked, they will go to any length and any sacrifice. Short of that, politicians best have an exit strategy when their trick doesn’t work. Bush’s trick is unraveling. What was done to us on 9/11 does not justify all-out war against the people who didn’t do it. First graders on the playground are smart enough to figure that out.
Please forgive me, Ron. The Vietnam Conflict was waaaay before my time. It stands, however, that we could have won if the president would have allowed us to instead of following containment.
That is a stunningly stupid statement, even by your standards, NeoFascist. But it’s easy to understand why President Kennedy couldn’t approve a follow-up to the Tet Offensive. President Kennedy was four years in his grave before the Tet Offensive began at the end of January, 1968.
Reignman,
I agree that it would help if we didn’t shoot at people. Unfortunately, we have to shoot at people who are shooting at us, and I wish our soldiers were allowed to shoot at militants who are an immenent threat to them. At present, a militant Iraqi can walk down the street carrying an M-16 or a rocket launcher, and our soldiers can do nothing about it.
I wish we could wage all-out war against the militants currently in Iraq. I doubt that we would make many more enemies if we are fighting against those who wish to do us harm, and if potential militants saw us attacking the Iraqi militants, the potential militants would be less likely to attack us.
As for Vietnam, the North Vietnamese army was crippled as a result of the Tet Offensive. It was a stunning victory for the US, but the media made it sound like a horrible loss. If we had been allowed to strike the North Vietnamese army while it was crippled, we could have won the war. However, policies of limited warfare kept us from attacking without President Kennedy’s consent. By the time we were able to do anything, the North Vietnamese army was back on its feet.
One more thing, how do you think we could have won Vietnam?
No one said we should be, and one great way to take care of “bad persons” who don’t like us is to put our soldiers in a position where they aren’t a shooting gallery. If you shoot them, then more and more people get pissed off at you., whether they should or not.
“we are creating new ‘enemies’ every day…”
Well, if someone is a bad person, I don’t see any reason to buddy up with them. These enemies that you speak of are going to hate us no matter what we do. If we get on their bad side, tough luck. I would rather not be friends with those who dislike us and foster oppressive regimes, anyway.
It’s the Nixon-to-China thing. A Democrat cannot advocate exit or withdrawal without being labelled as a pacifist peacenik, as Dean was. In order to maintain credibility on security issues (already his biggest vulnerability) Kerry has to appear relatively hawkish, even out-hawking the hawks.
Just doing so more honestly than Bush, perhaps.
we are creating new “enemies” every day, why? will there be peace in iraq when we leave, and freedom? how?
we can’t just play texas cowboys for a few more weeks and then abandon the whole region I’m afraid.
after all “iraq freedom” was the main reason for going there (and, of course, oil and money – in the usual conservative mixture of greed, racism, violence and corruption)
Here’s an exit strategy for you:
Win the War, don’t be cordial with enemy militants. Kill them or capture them. We can win that way and get out of Iraq.
uh, neofascist,
The lesson we kinda learned from Vietnam is that you don’t go into a war of choice without an exit strategy. Because you don’t want to get stuck in a quagmire.
Heard of the Powell doctrine?
Kosovo, Somalia? Lots of folks demanded an exit strategy, although those interventions were too small to threaten to become a quagmire. Certainly there was no way Grenada would become a quagmire.
Don’t want quagmire… want exit strategy…
Is this too hard to understand or something?
By the way, now a war of choice is threatening to become a quagmire, because we did not have an exit strategy!
Um…I’m pretty sure there were thousands of hippies back in the 60s that wanted us to get the f*** out of Vietnam. We were winning WWI from when we got in and always making progress. WWII was a war we were going to win no matter the cost. As for Kosovo and Mogadishu, I know that some of our soldiers died in Mogadishu, but the number of soldiers who died in Kosovo was zero, and it still is today, despite the fact that we still have peacekeeping troops there.
You guys keep asking for an exit strategy, but there was no one whining for an exit strategy before we even went into Vietnam. Or South Korea. Or WWI or WWII. Come to think of it, when has anyone demanded an exit strategy from any president except Bush. Just wondering, what was our exit strategy in Kosovo or Mogadishu?
frankly0, I agree with much of what you’re saying, and I think Kerry’s already been doing a lot of it. Like when you say that Kerry “should argue that Bush has destroyed the possibility of international cooperation on Iraq by his persistent bad faith in dealing with the international community, but that he, Kerry, will try to bring in the support of the UN and an authentic international coalition.” Every time I’ve heard him talk about Iraq, he’s been emphasizing those precise things.
Good point frankly0. Kerry is able to convincingly talk of honor because of his military service. It is one reason I’m glad he beat Edwards.
Sorry to intrude myself still again, but I think a theme that would be very important for Kerry to emphasize is the notion of restoring our national HONOR, which Bush has befouled.
Kerry, as a decorated Vet, is in PERFECT position to push this point. I have zero doubt but that it would have far ranging appeal.
He could articulate how, under a Kerry administration, he would correct the policies that, for example, made the prisoner abuses inevitable.
“Stay close to your enemy so he cannot hit you with all of his might”
Very nice. Please notice, Ruy. most of the responses are respectfully disagreeing with your analysis.
I agree with them. No matter what Kerry does, Iraq is Bush’s war. He owns it. Independents know this.
If Kerry emphasizes that he would never have got us into this mess, and he will be far smarter about getting us out in a responsible fashion, that is enough. Use words like irresponsible, misleading, reckless, under-plannned, etc. Relentlessly quote and refer to hawkish critics such as Zinni & Clark. Emphasize that America is wasting its strength and prestige; that the war is making us weaker rather than stronger.
As soon as Kerry ties himself down with specifics the Bush attack machine will go to town. If fast moving events on the ground make the Kerry plan obsolete, then Kerry is a flip-flopper. If Kerry gives a date Bush beats the date. Etc, etc, etc.
Possibly much closer to the election Kerry can put forth a more specific plan. Now is not the time.
One further point.
It’s worthwhile to recall the exact event that seemed to precipitate the recent fall in Bush’s numbers: the prison abuse scandal.
What does that suggest? That the thing that is most difficult for Americans to swallow is not casualties, or expense, or even policy failure, but rather damage to our national honor.
What Kerry needs to do most urgently is articulate a strategy to regain our sense of pride in our behavior as a country.
Just to follow up on my post, here’s why I think it’s most important for Kerry to come up with a plan that would represent a good faith effort to do things right in Iraq.
What I believe most Americans really want is to feel good about how America has acted in Iraq. We want to feel some measure of real PRIDE in who we are as Americans, and what we have done abroad. For many of us, perhaps the worst part of the Bush administration behavior in Iraq is that it has shamed us as a nation — and the prisoner abuse is most inescapable example. We need to feel that these problems have been corrected,. That is more important to us as a nation than whether our foray into Iraq happens to succeed or fail.
What Kerry CAN do, and DOES have real control over, is see to it that the US acts honorably in Iraq, so that we can restore our sense of national pride.
I think it is far more important, even politically, for Kerry to address this problem than it is to find an exit strategy out of Iraq.
It may be important for Kerry to articulate an exit strategy before the election, but I’m not sure I’m convinced on that point.
What I DO think Kerry needs to do is demonstrate that he will make an earnest effort to right things in Iraq. He should argue that Bush has destroyed the possibility of international cooperation on Iraq by his persistent bad faith in dealing with the international community, but that he, Kerry, will try to bring in the support of the UN and an authentic international coalition. I think that he should not get hopes up very high over the potential success of such a plan, but simply point out that it is the only one with any likelihood of success. In particular, he should not PROMISE that his approach will surely succeed. A Kerry attempt to bring together an international coalition in this effort will have its own very positive effect of healing the rifts with the community of nations even if Iraq itself can’t be fixed — and the estrangement of the US from that community is most certainly the more important issue here anyway.
I think that the American people will forgive a President for a good faith effort in Iraq that fails, particularly if the problem was not his own doing. But I do think most Americans, and indeed most other countries, want very much to feel that that a sincere effort has been made before throwing in the towel.
Kerry doesn’t need to win this election, he just has to make sure that Bush loses. Seeing as how Bush is having more than enough trouble as it is, Kerry seems to just be sitting back and enjoying the show, and saving his energy and funds (and i hope firey rhetoric) for the last couple of months of the campaign.
Kerry has Bush pinned against a wall over Iraq.
As long as Kerry does not call for a withdrawll, George is going to flip and flop to exit Iraq
Kerry is smarter than most
Stay close to your enemy so he can not hit you with all of his might
In Vietnam it was called “Hug the Belt”, their tactic, not ours
Kerry can set the end of 2005 as a date certain but Bush will turn that all topsy turvey by exiting this summer or early fall.
There’s been too many administration people saying that “of course we will leave if the interim government asks us to”. That boys and girls is what’s called a “marker.” You can be sure that the Iraqis will ask us to leave because Bush’s people are going to arrange it.
If independents then are so opposed to staying, imagine how happy they’ll be just before the Republican convention when Bush lets everyone know that he just had a most interesting conversation with the head of the interim government.
This election is entirely event driven. George W Bush hasn’t come this far in his 3 1/2 year quest for re-election to let a little thing like integrity or honor to get in his way. If the RNC has to bribe the whole interim governing council, we’re getting out. After all, they’ll be sovereign then, won’t they?
Recognizing reality — that the Iraqi people want us out now — and will keep fighting until we leave, is never popular. This situation is totally FUBAR.
However, the main thing is to keep the blame on Bush. Let Bush own this mess until Nov. 2. If Kerry puts out a specific plan, then it lets Bush off the hook. Kerry should stop talking about putting in more troops (the polls show that is very unpopular with independents), and just talk about how the world will cooperate in getting this mess off our hands once we vote out Bush.
By the time, Kerry is inaugurated, the US military will be declaring victory and going home to cover up the total defeat anyway. Iraqis will either unify or start a civil war. We have no control over that. It’s their country.
Check out what Mr. Bill, Clinton that is, has to say about Kerry’s campaign and recognise that it is too early for Senator Kerry to be “laying out an exit strategy”. You must be a relatively young person or you would recognise his strategy as the “rope-a-dope”.
The problem is that we have troops there in the first place. Kerry should be calling for an immediate end to the military occupation.
The only reason there is violence in Iraq is because Iraqi’s view the US army as an occupation force, much the way American colonists viewed the Redcoats as an occupation in the 1760s and 1770s.
The only solution is an immediate military pullout. To do anything less is to deny Iraqi’s self-determination.
If the bush war had not occurred, then the U.S. would still be maintaining the no fly zones etc…
So, Kerry has expressed an appropriate policy at this time under the present circumstances.
Kerry will be able to get more troop support from the US allies and be able to reduce US troops on the ground substantially.
Don’t miss Salon’s interview with Kerry.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/28/kerry/index.html
The problem is that Kerry is a realist enough to know that there will not be an exit from Iraq, under his watch or anyone else. The US has a long-term strategic interest in the region that contains the majority of the world’s oil. We have not begun building 18 permanent military bases in Iraq to secure the short-term peace there.
So yes, we do need a stabilization strategy. But exit isn’t gonna happen. Kerry could still lie and say that it is until he gets elected, but he’s apparently too principaled to do that.