Lieberman: Dems Have Given Up Their Moral Authority
Fox News:
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman on Thursday painted a dim picture of his party, saying Democrats have given up their moral authority on foreign policy because they are more concerned with opposing Republicans than doing what is right.
The former presidential candidate and hawkish senator from Connecticut also came down hard on critics of a resolution he and Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., co-sponsored calling on the Bush administration to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.
“For many Democrats, the guiding conviction in foreign policy isn’t pacifism or isolationism, it is distrust and disdain of Republicans in general, and President Bush in particular,” Lieberman said at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
“In this regard, the Democratic foreign policy worldview has become defined by the same reflexive, blind opposition to the President that defined Republicans in the 1990s — even when it means repudiating the very principles and policies that Democrats as a party have stood for, at our best and strongest,” Lieberman continued.
Lieberman — who has run for the top spot in the Oval Office as well as the No. 2 — is unique in the Senate, having won re-election last year following a Democratic primary election defeat tinged with anti-war sentiment. He ran a rare successful independent campaign by stumping largely on his foreign policy stance in support of the Iraq war and against terrorism. Lieberman has maintained his Democratic affiliation, caucusing in the Senate with Democrats.
On Thursday, Lieberman waxed nostalgic over foreign policy giants Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy, but said that after Vietnam, it took until the Clinton administration to regain an internationalist, interventionist attitude among Democrats.
Just as soon as that attitude returned, it left again once the Bush administration took the reins in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, atmosphere. He said President Bush’s call for the spread of democracy across the globe followed a campaign in which, as Lieberman described it, Bush was less interested in foreign policy than his Democratic opponent, Al Gore. Lieberman was Gore’s running mate.
“The Bush administrations post-9/11 ideological conversion confronted Democrats with an awkward choice. Should we welcome the president’s foreign policy flip-flop? Or should Democrats match it with a flip-flop of our own?” Lieberman said.
“I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework that the president articulated for the War on Terror as our own — because it was our own. It was our legacy … But that was not the choice most Democrats made. Instead, they flip-flopped,” he said.
Lieberman said Democrats aren’t being guided by principle, but partisanship.
“Even as evidence has mounted that General Petraeus’ new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving, or even that that progress has enabled us to begin drawing down our troops there,” he added.
Just as Lieberman was speaking, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House will take up a temporary Iraq spending bill which will curb the war in Iraq. The plan, known as the “bridge,” provides $50 billion for four months in Iraq and starts a withdrawal of troops to be completed by next December.
“This (war strategy) is not working. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We must reverse it. We will again make a distinction … to show a new direction in Iraq. The goal is ending it within a year and leave behind just a small force,” she said.
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He’s the only sensible Democrat…
Too bad he’s only one voice among a bunch of children.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pmI wanted to vote for that man for President.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:51 pmspot on
“more concerned with opposing Republicans than doing what is right.”
Isn’t he an Independent
November 8th, 2007 at 3:53 pmThe Dems are so far gone. There are people who will actually find what he said to be a new revelation. But most will just shrug it off as they do anything that might make them think. You’re only “open-minded” if you agree with them, after all.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:02 pmJoe-mentum lives!
November 8th, 2007 at 4:28 pmHe’s the only DemocRat who doesn’t make me retch.
God Bless him!
Yea, he’s the only sensible Democrat…who has been forced into being an independent…so I guess technically there are no sensible Democrats.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:56 pmPoor Joe. He doesn’t even realize that the democRats never had the moral authority in the first place. They have never been anything other than the whiny little snot-nosed bastards that they are. A pox on all their houses. Time to purge the traitors from the government. McCarthy was right.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:41 pmNancy poopoohead and her fellow twits really are pathetic.
They really do smell don’t they.
They are the Titanic.
November 8th, 2007 at 7:52 pm“I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework that the president articulated for the War on Terror as our own…”
I appreciate that from Joe.
But this? :
“…— because it was our own. It was our legacy …”
Not so much. Cuz it ain’t the truth. Gore as POTUS and Joe as VP after 9/11? I’m glad I didn’t vote for that combo.
November 8th, 2007 at 8:25 pm@Ranger: Good point.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:25 pmActually, he’s pretty much right. Interventionism was the Ds’ position, while “nation-building” was disdained by Rs. Until 9-11, when things got serious. Ever since, their partisanship has forced the Ds deeper and deeper into betrayal of their party and country.
I have hopes for the current reality check, but never forget that “Bullshit Baffles Brains”, and they may yet impose their delusions on the US and the world.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:07 pmGreat guy. Nancy Pelosi and her band of defeatists aren’t so awesome, though. I just can’t understand why they still want to withdraw from Iraq, especially now that we finally found a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean…. geez…
November 8th, 2007 at 11:54 pmWith JL strong views being Pro America, Joe doesn’t realize that he really is a moderate republican.
November 9th, 2007 at 3:15 amJoe’s in the wrong party!
“There is something profoundly wrong — something that should trouble all of us — when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.”
Amen brother! Man, Lieberman really hit the nail on the head with that one. He really knows how to articulate the problems with the dems so much better than any republican in politics today.
“There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base, even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime,” Lieberman said in a thinly veiled swipe at Clinton’s Democratic challengers.
Cheers! Beers are on me Joe.
November 9th, 2007 at 8:09 am