This comes from the Dec 31, 2000, issue of National Review. We all love Joe on the war, but has the McCain camp read this?
Orthodox Democrat
The fall of Joe Lieberman.
Jay Nordlinger
‘Say it ain’t so, Joe” — it was one of the most common headlines of the 2000 campaign. And it was found not only in the conservative press, but in more mainstream precincts as well. The “Joe,” of course, was Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Al Gore’s running mate, and increasingly his likeness. In myriad ways, Lieberman disappointed his old admirers, and attracted new ones. And it was, indeed, “so.”
For about ten years, Lieberman had been many Republicans’ favorite Democrat: the very model of a “New Democrat,” freed of the nonsense of his party’s Left. But then he had his rendezvous with Al Gore and national Democratic status, and collapsed like a house of cards. To be sure, the Lieberman style remained intact: the religiosity, the sanctimony, the self — absorption. But the substance of the man seemed to evaporate before our eyes. This led to the jibe “All yarmulke, no Torah” (to go with the less fresh “All hat, no cattle” applied to George W. Bush).
Even in a profession packed with egos, Joe Lieberman stands out. He sometimes brings to mind the old expression, “He’ll die in his own arms.” And a man once seen as almost above politics — a thinker, a statesman, a man of “conscience” — is now understood to be an ordinary pol, or worse. Three weeks into the Florida postelection season, Chris Matthews, the journalist and ex — aide to Tip O’Neill, marveled as follows: “I sense that Joe Lieberman is the horniest, most ambitious politician I have ever seen in my life.” He is not unique, though. Lieberman has a close analogue in his fellow senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, another vaunted “conscience of the Senate.” Both men are accomplished, and prolific, talkers. They are also famous “wrestlers” — always wrestling with issues, and wrestling with dilemmas, and wrestling — inevitably — with “conscience.” And when they are done wrestling, it is almost always the Democratic party — whatever its needs — that has won. The other day, Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley remarked that Lieberman “will have to spend a long time recovering his piety.” Maybe, maybe not. People’s memories tend to be short, and politicians, in particular, have a way of gliding on. But Lieberman may indeed have to put a little effort into polishing his halo. Before he succeeds, let’s “review the situation,” as a song lyric has it. What is it about this man that has disgusted so many conservatives — and more than a few principled liberals too?
National Review was, so to speak, present at the creation. For many years, it had groaned under Connecticut senator Lowell Weicker, a Republican, but a particularly obnoxious foe of conservatives. When it came to his position in the GOP, Weicker would charmingly say, “I’ll always be the turd in the punch bowl.”
National Review, however, was determined to remove him. In 1988, when the senator was up for reelection, the magazine’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr., and his family — longtime residents of Connecticut — had an idea: They would form “Buckleys for Lieberman.” In due course, this became “BuckPac,” a small but potent movement to unseat Weicker and replace him with the state’s attorney general, Joe Lieberman. Bill Buckley straightforwardly proclaimed that Weicker was “the number — one horse’s ass in the Senate”; Lieberman, in contrast, was someone a body could stomach.
That November, Lieberman topped Weicker by 10,000 votes — a landslide, perhaps, by the standards of 2000, but a squeaker in any normal year. Did BuckPac make a difference — even the difference? Some thought so, and not only the group’s members. Lieberman himself hinted as much. As he was preparing to take the oath of office in January 1989, National Review expressed the hope — largely mirthful — that the senator, “on mature reflection,” would switch parties.
In the Senate, Lieberman did indeed make an improvement over Weicker. Still, there were signs of the Lieberman we would see in full come 2000. Take the Clarence Thomas nomination. When the judge was first put forward, Lieberman had nothing but glowing things to say about him, praising, for example, his “strength of character, independence of mind, and intellect generally.” But then came Anita Hill’s accusations. Lieberman did not swallow them whole — or at all. No, he and his staff spoke with a host of other women who had worked with Thomas, and the senator was pleased to announce that “there had been universal support” for the judge, and “not even a hint of impropriety.” Yet Lieberman in the end voted against Thomas — waiting until the last possible moment, when the much — abused judge had already received enough votes for confirmation.
So, what won conservative hearts? For one thing, Lieberman was stalwart on school choice, supporting vouchers that would allow poorer parents to send their children to private schools. He pushed for “pilot programs” all over the country. The senator was especially passionate about school choice in the District of Columbia, where it is sorely needed — and where it has been consistently denied by the Democratic party. In 1997, he said: “There are some who dismiss suggestions of school — choice programs and charter schools out of hand . . . The undeniable reality here is that this system is already in ruins. And to blindly reject new models and refuse to try new ideas is simply foolish. We can and must do better for these children. And to cling stubbornly to the failures of the past will just not get us there.” George W. Bush could not have put it better — and, indeed, he didn’t. But Lieberman would accuse Bush of “public – school abandonment” — just as hard — core educationists had accused him, Lieberman.
And affirmative action? Here Lieberman carried significant moral heft. In 1995, he said, “Affirmative action is dividing us in ways its creators could never have intended, because most Americans who do support equal opportunity and are not biased don’t think it is fair to discriminate against some Americans as a way to make up for historic discrimination against other Americans. For after all, if you discriminate in favor of one group on the basis of race, you thereby discriminate against another group on the basis of race.”
George Bush would certainly be unwilling to go this far in his public statements. Yet Lieberman and other Democrats in 2000 repeatedly depicted him as an enemy of black Americans.
When it came to Social Security, Lieberman was a brave and pioneering reformer. In 1998 he declared that “a remarkable wave of innovative thinking is advancing the concept of privatization. . . . I think in the end that individual control of part of the retirement Social Security funds has got to happen.” The senator voted to take 2 percent of the payroll tax and invest it in private accounts — and to raise the retirement age for both Social Security and Medicare.
Not even Bush — brave and pioneering as he was — would go this far. And yet the Democrats — not excluding their vice — presidential nominee — portrayed him as a threat to the health and well — being of the elderly.
In the Senate, Lieberman embraced other positions as well that are generally regarded as “conservative.” He bucked his party to support a cut in the capital — gains tax. He worked with William J. Bennett to censure and correct the entertainment industry. He stood foursquare for tort reform (although this was probably a function of his representing an insurance — industry state; once he went national, this was no longer a problem). And in probably his finest hour, he refused to be an obstructionist for the White House on the committee investigating campaign — finance abuses. He explained that he was loath to “defend the indefensible.”
That sets the bar fairly low — a refusal to obstruct a key congressional investigation. Yet Republicans are usually grateful for anything they can get out of a Democrat. This was certainly more than they could get from that committee’s senior Democrat, John Glenn. So Lieberman — for the equivalent of declining to push over baby carriages in the street — was lionized. Manner counts as well. Throughout his career, Lieberman has depended heavily on manner. In fact, it has meant the world to him. While that manner is often cloying, it can be thoughtful, genial, and reassuring. As a consequence, Lieberman is badly underrated as a demagogue. Ted Kennedy might say, “Those right — wingers are throwing old people out into the snow!” Lieberman would say — with a sorrowful shake of the head — ”It pains me to conclude that our Republican friends simply don’t understand that the effects of their policies would be to evict our elderly — among the most precious of God’s children — into the dark and forbidding night.”
In September 1998 came Joe Lieberman’s Big Moment: his chiding of Bill Clinton on the floor of the Senate, eight months into the Lewinsky affair. He rebuked Clinton for “immorality” and for making it harder for parents to rear children. There was nothing truly remarkable in what Lieberman said — Republicans had been saying it, and much more, all along. But, again, Lieberman received high marks — and national fame — for sticking out in his crowd. He was hailed as a thrilling combination of Maimonides and Mr. Smith. Of course, the senator had nothing to say about Clinton’s criminal acts; he talked only about “private behavior.” In fact, Lieberman is practically the author of the “It’s only personal” line pursued so successfully by the Democrats, from Clinton on down.
On Meet the Press, the Sunday after the Big Moment, Lieberman allowed that his floor speech was “the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my political career.” But he had to be — here comes the C — word — ”true to my own conscience.” Even more — here is another typical Lieberman flourish — ”I honestly felt it was the best thing for him and his presidency.” Then the show’s host, Tim Russert, asked the money question: “Do you believe that Bill Clinton has the morality and integrity to be president of the United States?” Lieberman replied, “I do . . . He’s made some serious mistakes here” — but they were “personal mistakes.” And that was that.
Needless to say, Lieberman voted to acquit Clinton in the Senate. In doing so, he acknowledged that “it is likely that there were occasions on which the president made false or misleading statements and took actions which could have had the effect of impeding discovery of evidence in judicial proceedings” — but, hey: “Whether any of his conduct constitutes a criminal offense such as perjury or obstruction of justice is not for me to decide. That, appropriately, should and must be left to the criminal — justice system . . . “ Most other Democrats did not make nearly as much of a show as Lieberman; they simply cast their votes to acquit, denouncing Republicans as “witch hunters” as they went. But Lieberman — like Pat Moynihan — had “wrestled,” and agonized, and wrung his hands. And fallen in with his party.
When Al Gore selected Joe Lieberman as his running mate, he made probably the wisest move of his campaign. Vice — presidential nominations are seldom consequential — ”First, do no harm” is the watchword — but Lieberman seemed to do Gore loads of good, immediately separating him from the problematic Clinton and guiding him toward an imagined political center. At the time of his pick, Gore was trailing Bush (who, granted, had just had his convention) badly; when he announced Lieberman, he pulled practically even — overnight. Certainly no candidate in history has been happier to be included on a ticket than Lieberman. In 1988, Dan Quayle was ridiculed for puppyish enthusiasm; Lieberman in 2000 would make him seem positively sedate. For days — weeks, months — it was one, long “Yippee!” In particular, Lieberman milked his status as a Jewish pioneer for all it was worth. As one (Jewish) wag griped, “It’s like he’s saying, ‘I just got off the boat and they made me vice president — what a country!’“
At his unveiling in Tennessee, Lieberman made an especially grating speech, setting the tone for his campaign. There was a lot of mugging and fist — pumping and high — fiving and kiss — blowing — and a lot of quoting Chronicles and thanking the Lord and his 85 — year — old mother (he would always give her age, as though it were some freakish Guinness mark) and “this miracle” and “I love you and thank you, my dear Hadassah Freilich Lieberman.” But there was also the strained and strange testimony in behalf of Al Gore. One paean ended, “He has never, never wavered in his responsibilities as a father, as a husband, and — yes — as a servant of God Almighty.” So there.
Lieberman went on to link himself to John Kennedy. And to quote the Beatles. And to note duly — very duly — that he had had a “memorable” conversation with “the Reverend Jesse Jackson,” who “said something to me that went to my heart” (something about breaking barriers). Lieberman pronounced his ticket the “American Dream Team” — and declared that “eight years ago, the American Dream was not alive and well.” Not just not realized, or imperfectly realized, but not even alive and well — the mere dream! Little did anyone know that Lieberman would sing the Democratic music so well.
So in Joe Lieberman, Al Gore got a bonus — not just Maimonides, but a partisan pit bull. Let no one think that Lieberman eschewed the traditional vice — presidential role of hatchet man. He may not have the manner of Spiro Agnew, or Bob Dole (1976 version), but he unquestionably did his duty, as his party saw it.
And then there was that collapse. Now, politics involves compromise, and there is nothing inherently blameworthy about it. Vice — presidential nominees, in particular, bear a heavy burden of compromise. Sometimes they do it with grace; sometimes they do it clumsily. But they do it, to one extent or another.
Joe Lieberman, though, must have shattered every existing record. And he did it not with humility, or a cognizant wink and shrug; he did it with aggressiveness, and denial, and an odorous self — righteousness.
In a flash, he walked away from school choice, on which he had been so hot. In one of his most disingenuous moments, he said of George Bush’s education proposals, “Frankly, he focuses too much on vouchers, goes to it too quickly — in a way abandons the public — school system.”
On affirmative action, he more than collapsed: He abased himself in a fashion almost alarming. He knew early on that he had to placate his party’s black radicals, led by Rep. Maxine Waters of California (dubbed by radio host Larry Elder “Kerosene Maxine” for her incendiary role in the Los Angeles riots). At the Democratic convention, Lieberman went before her and her band to give them whatever reassurances they needed to cinch their support for the ticket. (There had been noises about defection.) He said: “I was for affirmative action, am for affirmative action, and will be for affirmative action.” This was a stunning statement, reminiscent of stories from totalitarian states. It also bore a relation to another (infamous) tripartite political declaration: George Wallace’s “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”
In another move apparently intended to shore up the black vote, Lieberman did what no major or respectable politician had done before: propose to meet with Louis Farrakhan, the demagogue and hater who has a larger following than most Americans suppose. About Lieberman, Farrakhan had worried, “Would he be more faithful to the Constitution of the United States than to the ties that any Jewish person would have to the State of Israel?” (That’s our Louis: always looking out for the Constitution.) On American Urban Radio, Lieberman said of Farrakhan: “I have respect for him.” Pressed to say what that respect was based on, Lieberman mentioned Farrakhan’s voter — registration activities — and thereby let the cat out of the bag.
On to Social Security: Here Lieberman performed another Mao — style self — denunciation, writing what the campaign labeled an “Op — Ed piece” (never published) entitled “My Private Journey Away from Privatization.” On August 13, parroting language that even Gore had abandoned, Lieberman denounced the Bush plan — which was more cautious than the program that he himself had originally endorsed — as a “risky scheme.”
Then there was the appeasement of another vital Democratic constituency: Hollywood. Lieberman pretended that he had never suggested government action against entertainment — industry malefactors — that he had only wanted to discomfit them. But in 1999, he had said, “We’re coming dangerously close . . . , much as we prize our liberties, to the point where they’re going to invite legal restrictions on their freedom because they are beginning to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater . . . , and they’re going to be held accountable.” At a Hollywood fundraiser on September 18, 2000, Lieberman said to the glitterati, “I promise you this: that we will never, never put the government in the position of telling you by law, through law, what to make. We will noodge you, but we will never become censors.” Then, on October 5, in his vice — presidential debate versus Dick Cheney, Lieberman spoke of a Federal Trade Commission report alleging that Hollywood was marketing “adult rated” materials to children. “When that report came out,” said Lieberman, “Al Gore and I said to the entertainment industry, ‘Stop it.’ And if you don’t stop it in six months, we’re going to ask the Federal Trade Commission to take action against you.”
This is noodging?
As the general election wore on, Lieberman did a lot more than discard his positions and arguments for the good of the cause — he cut Republicans up. He led the effort to paint Bush’s Texas as a Third World hellhole, where children (with distended bellies? too weak to bat away flies?) rotted uninsured. He caricatured Bush and Cheney as a pair of Big Oil fat cats. He accused them of “running down the military” because they criticized the Clinton administration’s handling of it. He said that their plan to skip a generation of military technology — so as to leap ahead, the Bushies maintained — would “cripple our readiness.” He said that their proposal to recall U.S. troops from the Balkans would “break up the NATO alliance.” And here is a real beauty: Bush and Cheney had suggested opening about 8 percent of the (gigantic) Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. So Lieberman charged that this “would cause irreversible damage to one of God’s most awesome creations.” When Lieberman drags God into it, we can bet that he is at his cheapest.
Again, not only conservatives noticed. By October 25, the Washington Post’s editorial board had had enough. Under the headline “Where’s the Old Joe Lieberman?” it chronicled the senator’s brazen reversals and described his (extended) dalliance with Farrakhan as “pitiful to watch.”
It is hard to say which was the worst aspect of Lieberman’s campaign — but probably it was the lending of his moral authority, such as it was, to the inflaming of race relations. On one Meet the Press, Tim Russert showed Lieberman the notorious NAACP ad exploiting the murder — by — dragging of James Byrd, a black Texan. The ad featured a moving truck and a suggestive chain trailing behind it, as the victim’s daughter — narrating — decried Gov. Bush’s unwillingness to sign further “hate crimes” legislation. (Bush argued that criminals should be punished as criminals, plain and simple. Two of the three Byrd murderers got the chair; the other received life in prison.) Said the daughter: “When Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate — crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.”
Lieberman said that he had never seen the ad, which had been the subject of intense controversy for days: “Is that — was that someone related to James Byrd?” (meaning the narrating daughter). “Well,” he finally said, “that’s a sincere expression of her opinion. . . . Based on what you’ve told me, what I’ve just heard, I don’t think there’s anything factually wrong, and she’s just expressing an opinion.”
The “conscience of the Senate.”
On November 7, Lieberman handily won reelection to his Senate seat. He had chosen to remain his party’s senatorial nominee in Connecticut, causing many Democrats to regard him as selfish. (If Lieberman is inaugurated as vice president, the state’s governor, a Republican, will appoint a replacement senator, presumably a Republican. The division in the Senate will be 51 Republicans, 49 Democrats.) Toward the end of the campaign, Lieberman told an interviewer, “You know, in my daily prayers I definitely pray for the election of 51 — at least — Democratic senators.” Lest anyone misunderstand him, he went on to say, “I’m confident, and, as I say, I hope — and underline ‘pray’ — that the Democrats elect 51 senators.” These are interesting prayers. On December 6, the Associated Press reported the following: “When asked if he was glad that he doubled up on the Nov. 7 ballot, simultaneously running for vice president and reelection to his Senate seat from Connecticut, Lieberman just smiled.”
The conscience of the Senate.
It should not be hard to guess what Lieberman prayed for in the presidential contest (which at this writing remains undecided). The senator has been very much the face and mouth of the Gore efforts in Florida. As one (unnamed) Democrat observed to the Washington Post, “He is the real hawk. Once you’ve tasted the big time, it’s hard to go back.”
Since Election Night, Lieberman has repeatedly emphasized that “we won the popular vote.” This is obviously Talking Point Number One. And he has joined, or led, the assault on Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris. On November 16, he said, “Honestly [another Lieberman red flag], [she] has acted in a way that seems to me to be so unilateral, one — sided, and contrary to what the spirit of the law, let alone court decisions in Florida, suggest, which is that the whole intention of an election is to have the people’s desires reflected in the outcome. Not to go by the technical, legal detail of the law.”
This is Connecticut’s former attorney general. A former student of Robert Bork’s! And, of course, the conscience of the Senate.
Lieberman did seem slightly embarrassed by the furious Democratic effort to disqualify the votes of soldiers. “We ought to do everything we can,” he said at one juncture, “to count the votes of our military personnel overseas.” But then, asked what he might do in this regard, he answered, “I don’t know that I have that authority. I don’t believe I do legally or in any other way.” Or in any other way.
The conscience of the Senate.
At November’s end, he said the following about Republican protests in Miami — Dade County: “These demonstrations were clearly designed to intimidate and to prevent a simple count of votes from going forward.” As New York Post columnist John Podhoretz showed, Lieberman twisted the words of the county’s supervisor of elections, who had actually denied being intimidated, or even affected. Lieberman’s statement, as Podhoretz wrote, was “a complete and total lie.” The senator also declared — in one of his most galling utterances of the season — ”the time for electioneering is long past.” This from the party that invented the “permanent campaign.” This from the man whose campaign chairman vowed, on Election Night, “Our campaign continues.” And, just as he lent himself to the racializing of the election, Lieberman has lent himself to the racializing of the postelection. (In America, anything can be racialized: an impeachment, a recount — anything.) His campaign manager, Donna Brazile, told the world that black voters in Florida had been kept away by “dogs, guns.” And what did Lieberman have to say about this eye — popping, scandalizing, and ultimately deeply damaging lie? Nothing.
The conscience of the Senate.
Like Bill Clinton during the Year of Monica, Lieberman has wrapped his maneuvers in the Constitution. Said the senator, “We have an obligation to uphold the Constitution we are sworn to uphold.” And “what we do now” — in Florida — ”will be as important to the future of our country as anything any of us did during the campaign.” So true. And what Lieberman did during the campaign — and after — should long be remembered, at least by those who believe that words and actions matter.
But will anyone remember? Hard to say. One can imagine Lieberman regaining his aura: delivering a couple of conciliatory speeches, making nice to Republicans, who are always suckers for Democratic niceness, astonishing as it is. But will Lieberman even want his old reputation back, now that he has a countryful of new, and different, friends? John Podhoretz has said, “He sold his soul, and found out it didn’t hurt — so he kept going.” And how did this happen? Did the Democratic party do it to him? Is that party so bad that, when it beckons, it can make a basically good and wise man mean and absurd? Or did Lieberman do it to himself? On the trail, he seemed, as everyone remarked, a happy warrior. He may have taken a plunge — but he enjoyed it, embraced it lustily, fell with joy.
What we are left with is Lieberman the orthodox Democrat, the plain old Democrat, no big deal in the age of Clinton — Gore (or should we say Clinton — Gore — Lieberman?). But there is still that awful veneer: the unctuousness, the moralizing, the posturing, the lectures, the sniveling, the “wrestling,” the self — love. Lieberman has proven himself basically the same as, oh — just at random — the other Connecticut senator, Christopher Dodd. But you know? At least Dodd spares us the crap.