As a lobbyist for Connecticut-based company, I got to know Joe Lieberman quite well. In fact, my colleagues and I donated personally, as well as through our PAC, to Joe’s successful campaign to defeat the odious Lowell Weicker.
Joe is a nice man, and he’s completely honest and without pretension – the sort of person one would want to have in one’s home or family.
But not, I’m afraid, in the White House.
That’s because at the end of the day, Joe – for all the praise given him as a “moderate” – is very much an incoherent Liberal.
Yes, he supports the war in Iraq, but here at home he’s taken the lead to frustrate energy development. Going back to the first President Bush’s so-called energy bill in 1992 – Joe used his first filibuster to block exploration in the 2000-acre coastal strip of ANWR.
There is something incoherent about favoring US military action in the Middle East (and I don’t oppose it) while, at the same time, denying domestic oil production and forcing more of our dollars in the bank accounts of hostile regimes.
Where’s the national security benefit in that?
Joe also took the lead on trying to foist a very expensive and destructive “cap and trade” program to limit “global warming.” China is now surpassing us as the world’s biggest carbon emitter, and that’s where what’s left of America’s manufacturing base would go with “cap and trade.” Come to think of it, neither China nor India limits domestic energy development.
So, yes, Joe Lieberman is a good and decent human being. But except for the Iraq war, his positions are all pretty standard issue for a Liberal Blue State Democrat.
