Opinion: A lonely voice in the Democratic caucus
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Although he caucuses with Senate Democrats, Connecticut’s Senator Joe Lieberman, who was re-elected last fall as an independent, continues to live up to his non-party label.
Speaking to George Stephanopoulos today on ABC-TV’s ‘This Week,’ Lieberman, once a Democratic vice presidential candidate, said flat out, ‘I’m not going to make my selection of who to support for president in ’08 based on party.’
He criticized Washington’s current ‘petty partisan fighting over national security,’ saying all the Democratic candidates were being drawn to their left-leaning base while admirably two Republican candidates--Rudy Giuliani and John McCain--were struggling with elements of their base.
Lieberman said he’s approaching this presidential election as an independent, but then added, ‘I would say the Democratic candidates in the larger questions of American security have been disappointing.’
‘Time may be running out politically in Washington,’ said the senator who lost the Democratic primary last year to an ardent anti-war candidate, ‘but it’s not running out in Iraq and that’s the tragedy here,’ adding, ‘The surge is working.’
‘To order a retreat now, which is what some of my colleagues will ask us to do in July, is just outrageously wrong,’ Lieberman added. A video of his interview is available by clicking here.
The New England senator said he was into supporting the war for the longterm. ‘As long as we have a reasonable chance of success in Iraq,’ he said, ‘then I’m going to say it’s worth it for us to stay because if Iran and al-Qaeda take over, they will destabilize the entire Mideast. And they will strike at us at home with more frequency and ferocity.’
Over on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ the administration’s Iraq war policy got less support from a member of the president’s own party. Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar was on. Frankly, he’s not the most exciting of Sunday morning interviews. But this past week he broke with the president over the war and said it’s time to pull American troops back to training Iraqis.
Lugar was asked by host Bob Schieffer if President Bush goes to Congress in September and says the U.S. needs to keep fighting at the same level, would Republicans support him?
‘Well, many will support that,’ the longtime senator said softly, ‘but not very many.’
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo: Sen. Joe Lieberman; Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP