Lieberman, The Nut

As I just explained, one of the heroes of my 20s, Senator Joe Lieberman, has turned into a real monster. This was apparent soon after the 2006 Midterms and, according to my social-psychological calculations, was the major trigger for is now 3 year long psychotic episode. There have been many effects, his endorsement of McCain and speaking at the RNC Convention are major league sins, but his recent behavior about health-care-reform is just unspeakable.

Repercussions of His Monstrosity

He's no longer my senator nor quasi-congregant, so why should I care? Well, besides my early ardent support (just see my blog posts from 2003-2006), he is probably the most prominent Orthodox Jew in the world. And because his behavior is terrible, it is a chillul Hashem. In a year following Madoff (and the Jewish *sounding* Goldman Sachs, a point for another time), we Hebrews are taking a major hit. Prominent pro-Israel schmucks like Lieberman contribute to the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism, as well.

An Example

Many decent, moderate-leftists have been pillorying Lieberman over the past few days - and with good cause - because he has just killed the public option for health-care-reform. Mark Kleiman, of the Reality Based Community, states:

In 2000, when Al Gore selected Joe Lieberman as his running-mate, Jesse Jackson decided to throw a tantrum about it, portraying Lieberman as some sort of crypto-reactionary creep. My reaction at the time was that Jackson was acting like a jerk and helping hand the election to the Republicans.

Of course I had no idea how close the election would be; as things turned out, Jackson’s move was probably the difference between having George W. Bush as President and not having him as President, which means the difference between war with Iraq and no war with Iraq. So Jackson was, indeed, acting like a jerk.

But, as Joe Lieberman has amply demonstrated, Jackson wasn’t wrong.

Now, while I will write Kleiman and suggest to him that in 2000 Joe wasn't so bad, I feel torn about lending any credibility to Lieberman and his rishus. But the crucial point of Kleiman's post isn't the original author, but from one of his commenters Ed Whitney" who says :

"[Lieberman's] goody-goody sanctimony combined with regressive politics was captured by Calvin Trillin in The Nation in 2000. He wrote his contribution to the tune of "O Tannenbaum" that went in part:

Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
A Democrat who’s newish,
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
We’re awfully glad you’re Jewish.
Though welfare kids may live on gruel,
At least you’ll always go to shul,
Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman,
Your Shabbas rides are fewish."

OK, got that? Some random blogger, in reminiscing about how bad Lieberman is, needs to quote treife-celebrating, Xmas-ogling, self-hating Jew Trillin to write an anti-Semitic jingle against Lieberman (in 2000!) set to a Xmas carol.

That's how chillul-Hashems work, my friend. And especially how Trillin - the terminal sinner - comes off as a better person than Lieberman, the Orthodox Jew. And I can't really argue that point now: Lieberman's actions are indefensible.

Defending Myself

His fall has been swift, in my mind and the shame I feel is mitigated by my feeling/knowledge that he wasn't always like this. I made a similar point when I had my final break with John Mamzer Edwards:

many people are correct only by chance. For example, the smartasses who said that John Edwards was *of course* cheating on his wife... basing their assertions on the sole facts that (a) Edwards was good-looking, and (b) they disagreed with Edwards' policies/profession/accent.

Not liking somebody, and thus attributing to the disliked person all sorts of crimes, does not make your criticisms prophetic. You just got lucky.

However, if you said that Edwards was a wife-cheater because of certain provable factors (e.g. you knew of some shady behaviors, you read in his book that 'cheating on your cancer-stricken wife ain't the worst thing a person can do', or if you personally slept with him), then - fine - you can be considered a perceptive prognosticator.

For the record, I didn't believe the rumors that Edwards was cheating on his wife because I didn't think that someone as successful as him (self-made multi-millionaire, young Democratic senator in a red-state) would do something so destructive and stupid. I mean, it was Spitzer-esque! And even then, I had some glimmering that Spitzer was a sexual-schkutz because he intermarried. Ya see, that's a provable indicator. Sex crime here leads to sex crime there. But Edwards? Why would someone running for president - someone who constantly references his wife's terminal cancer - have an affair on the campaign trail.

I feel the same way about Lieberman, and not just because I have counter-proof: what Lieberman is doing now is new and while his sanctimoniousness is a constant, and makes his wickedness especially galling (a holier-than-thou villain is hard to take), it is not his current crime. So those who say they were right for hating him in 2000 are deluded: his sanctimoniousness wasn't a crime then, nor now. His moderate-contrarianism wasn't a crime then, nor now. He's not being just 'contrary' now, he's being a Republican, and it's because his only friends now are Republicans (McCain, Graham - who, it should be said, are being shoved off by their own party).

So, Smarty Pants, What Happened?

When I lived in New Haven, I was told these main reasons for why Lieberman changed/was changing:

1. In general, Joe is not the brightest bulb in the electric menorah. No, he's definitely not stupid - he's not in the Bush league (har). It was tough for a Jew to go to Yale in 1964; to quote the Wiki:

   "He received a dual Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics from Yale University in 1964 and was the first member of his family to graduate from college. At Yale he was editor of the Yale Daily News and a member of the Elihu Club. He later attended Yale Law School, receiving his law degree in 1967. "

   But he's not in the league of Bill Clinton or even Al Gore.


2. He's not a Natural Politician = This needs to be added to the intelligence problem: he's not really an ambitious suck-up, like Bill Clinton, or a political legacy, like Al Gore or Chris Dodd. From what I heard, he became a politician because of a collection of friends, hangers-on, and especially because of his Mother. And that leads us to the most crucial reason for his fall from grace.
   
   
3. He lost his Political Soul in 2001 and again in 2005: For these facts, you needed to be on the Connecticut inside, but basically Joe lost two people over that time, his political head and his political heart: Jimmy O'Connell in 2001 and his mother in 2005. I will let this Chicago Tribune story from 2006 give the details:

   But the chapter that started in November 2000 would not end, not only because of the presidential campaign, but because of personal tragedy.
   
   Since Lieberman first ran for the State Senate in 1970, Jimmy O'Connell was Lieberman's eyes and ears on the Connecticut ground, one of those political pros who seemed to know every Democrat in every town-and someone who could tell the boss where he may have to make a phone call or a diner visit to calm an angry town chairman.
   
   In December, 2001, O'Connell, 53, was found slumped in his car off an exit ramp off I-91 in Windsor, the victim of an apparent heart attack.
   
   Three and a half years later, Lieberman's mother Marcia died. Lieberman for years has taken comfort and advice from four strong women: Brown; his wife Hadassah; Washington chief of staff Clarine Nardi Riddle; and his mother.
   
   Joe and Marcia Lieberman were not only close, they were political soulmates. Marcia Lieberman had traveled the country with her son in his national campaigns, vigorously defending him before voters and reporters-and one of the few people able to tell the senator when things didn't seem right.
   
   After her death in March, 2005, Lieberman seemed different to his extended family, less inclined to dive into intraparty politics. Ornstein, for one, said he regular lunches with the senator stopped.

   All of that corroborates what I heard in New Haven, and it should be said, that the Tribune story was in August 2006 - before it became totally clear that Lieberman was cracking up.

To review: Lieberman, not super-intelligent and a bad-fit politician, had his career created and sustained by two people - O'Connell and Joe's mom - who both died between 2001 and 2005. What I heard was that O'Connell was Joe's political brain and Joe's mom was his heart.

Is it any surprise, then, that Lieberman seems to be a stunningly stupid politician - as his August 2006 primary performance showed - and also a person who has lost his neshama - as his Republicanism of 2008-2009 shows.

Makeh B'Patish: The Final Hammerblow

The primary loss of 2006 has been, correctly, credited as the moment when Lieberman The Good became Bizarro Lieberman. For any outside observer, it's when he felt that his true friends were not Democrats - who abandoned him - but his Senate pals McCain and Graham. But with the above data, you can see why 25+ year political veteran (10 years in State Senate, 6 years as state AG, 3 terms as CT Senator) felt betrayed by a political - not personal - setback. Because he's not a natural pol; he actually felt he had "friends" in politics; and since his political & moral compasses had, by that year, both died, he made decisions not as a politician but as an aggrieved, friendless, persecuted old weirdo.

So I do not regret supporting him in 2006 - before it became known how nuts he was; and possibly, had the idiot leftoids of the Nader Democrats not tried to kill him in '06, he'd be a friendlier ally right now (to paraphrase the ultra-fictional Omar: "if you come at the king, you best not miss.")

But since his opposition to Obama in '08, I've grown apart from him, and now I must repudiate him as a politician. It's not personal, Joe. But you're a chillul Hashem and you seriously need to do teshuva.

Pics have been used before by me, except the Palpatine one, which I've thought for years, and the Wonder Twins from here.

Backpost: Obama's "Luck"

From September 1, 2008; I sent this email to Mark Kleiman of Samefacts.com.. Background: many people have asked why Obama seems to have luck that all his opponents, from the Senate on down to the primary and now general, seem to self-destruct. It sounds like luck! As Kleiman wrote:

Apropos the many developing Palin scandals, an observer of the Chicago political scene reminds me of Obama's "noted eerie knack for finding self-destructing opponents."

There was Alice Palmer, the incumbent State Senator who didn't submit enough valid signatures. There was Blair Hull, the apparent frontrunner in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, accused of wife-beating. There was Jack Ryan, the Republican Senate nominee, whose kinkily erotic side spilled out into the newspapers through his divorce proceedings. And then there was the comic carpetbagger Alan Keyes.

I try to keep theology separate from politics, but it's hard to escape the thought: If Obama didn't make a pact with Satan he must be on a special mission from God.

So my response:

re: Obama's Luck

Dear Prof. Kleiman,

While I agree with you that supernatural forces should never be discounted in any scientific inquiry, I think the reason Obama's opponents self-destruct is a combination of (a) the old adage that "fortune benefits the well-prepared", and (b) his ability to maintain his cool, which drives his opponents batty, to the point they self destruct.

Hillary self-destructed (Bill started first, though), then even Edwards (and he had already dropped out!), and now McCain.

all the best,
JC

And, true to his gentlemanly nature, Kleiman quotes me in an update: "Update: Or perhaps, a reader suggests, this may merely be a case where 'Fortune favors the prepared mind.'"

Now this analysis of mine has become conventional reason. But I was an early advocate of the theory that Obama's opponents self destruct because they can't handle his skill. Basically, because Obama is unflappable, his increasingly desperate opponents up the volume of their attacks, trying to rattle him, and all they succeed in doing is self-destruction.

Conservative & Liberal Today

Kleiman at The Reality Based Community brings up a point I've been making for some time:

A former publisher of the National Review has endorsed Barack Obama as the “conservative” candidate in this year’s Presidential race. That may sound like a paradox, but it makes perfect sense if you go back to what the word “conservative” originally meant.

“Conservatism” has many meanings. To my somewhat jaundiced eye, the primary practical content of American conservatism as embodied in the Republican Party is a preference for the interests of rich people and employers over non-rich people and workers, combined with hostility to the demands of “outsiders” for equal treatment. All the rest — the preference for “small government” that is nonetheless active in dictating sexual morality, hostility toward environmental protection, hostility toward science, nativism — follows from that basic stance. (The current tendency on the right to support the executive power over the legislative power is merely temporary and partisan.)

Of course there are tensions on both interest-group and ideological lines. Employers tend to be anti-nativist. Many “small government” types are anti-imperialist. Libertarians don’t like the sexual-purity agenda.

But the thing American conservatism most lacks is “conservatism” in the proper sense in which “conservative” is the opposite of “progressive”: a sense of the costs of rapid change and a distrust of pervasive schemes of reform, in the tradition of Burke, Hayek, and Oakeshott. Steve Teles has pointed out, for example, how utterly un-conservative it is to propose drastic changes in Social Security, and of course the same might be said about the project of making Iraq safe for democracy.

As relentlessly partisan as I am on most left/right issues, I find myself right in the middle on the progressive-conservative axis. The Second Reconstruction was a frankly revolutionary effort, and had quite as many unintended side-effects as Burke himself could have expected, but it was no less necessary or glorious for all of that. The same was true of the New Deal, and is true now of the movement toward regulating the environmental impacts of private economic activity. But I still find myself nodding in agreement when someone says “The basic cause of problems is solutions.” Both the freeway and the public housing project seemed like good ideas at the time.

Thinkers with an Oakeshottian cast of mind have been drawn toward Republicanism by the relentlessly progressive mood of the Democrats. And some of them, revolted by the past eight years, are now looking for another option. One of the attractions of Barack Obama’s candidacy was his capacity to speak to those people. I don’t know how many of them are actually out there, but it’s good to know that there are some.

Sounds familiar, no?

Backpost finished 2009-12-07.

GOP Advantage

When it comes to the military, the GOP can get away with murder.

What I meant is put better in this letter I sent (February 15, 2008 1:11 PM) to the Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman, about how McCain gets a free-ride on his non-opposition to torture:

This issue reminds me of the paradigm-based immunities that separate the supporters of each party.

The Dems and GOP have a set narrative, a paradigm of rectitude, a set of orthodoxies, in the public eye. When a person in the party, or the party leadership, goes against that orthodoxy, the press and by extension the people, give the party the benefit of the doubt. The 'sin' is either ignored or pardoned.

My examples are 'national defense' for GOP and 'civil rights' for Democrats. A Democrat can get away with doing bad things to minorities. The same things, if done by Republican, would be considered abuse, are ignored if done by a Democrat. The examples for this are rife from the Clinton era, but a more recent example is Senator Biden's remarks a few months about Obama (calling him well-spoken, etc) Yeah, it's not 'macaca' but it'd be called racist if coming from Romney. The Clintons were allowed to slash welfare, enact NAFTA, and Don't Ask Don't Tell and are still given credit for being "liberal." While die-hard partisans on those issues will still blame the Clintons for abandoning core principles, that's not the press narrative.

Andrew Sullivan makes a big deal about DODT -- it's the main reason he gives for distrusting the Clintons and attacking the Human Rights Commission -- that the Clintons have a bad civil rights record for gays and yet the HRC supports Hillary.

Note, when the Clintons recently were staked out as being in the opposition to a civil rights icon (Obama - who will be in history books for the next century whether he wins the nomination or not), they lost their paradigm immunity. Minor comments were considered race-bating not only because they were but because it was assumed that they were. I.e. Hillary & Bill were being treated under the Republican 'civil rights' rules.

The Republicans have the same immunity when it comes to national security and the military. Even though any right thinking person recognizes that the GOP (president & congress) has left the country vulnerable to terrorist attack, electively stirred up a massive world-wide terrorist movement, and have nearly crippled the military - they are given a pass for all of that. Surely, if a Democratic congress/president did any of this they would be pilloried. But it's just assumed that the GOP is loyal to the military and will be tough on security. Even when they're not.

A proof for this is John Kerry's 'botched joke' back in '06. He was making a comment about Bush, but through bad delivery, it came out as a swipe against the military. And that's the interpretation the press swallowed (probably til this day). But I thought Kerry was a dedicated war hero who volunteered to go into Vietnam? No dice. He's a Democrat, he's against the military.

This goes with your comments about the public perception of a "liberal." That Obama is not considered a liberal by many Americans because Obama talks about religion (and patriotism) as if they were good things. Same paradigm issues.

This is why McCain gets a pass by the press for betraying the military and the constitution vis-a-vis Iraq and torture. Because McCain *can't* betray about torture. That's his paradigm. And, if Kuhn was right, it will take massive amounts of evidence to argue the contrary.

Backpost started 4/16/07 with just the bolded line and finished 4/11/08.

Huckabee and the GOP Establishment

A letter I sent to Prof. Kleiman, in response to his question "Will the neo-cons and money-cons swallow Huckabee?":

Until I saw the Kristol column, I thought they wouldn't. Over the past few days I've heard from my partisan Republicans friends who hate Huckabee and said that if it came down to the two of them in November, they would vote for Hillary over Huck. Yeah, it's bluster, but that's pretty mean.

Who do they support? It used to be Giuliani but recently they think he's imploding fast over his general weirdness. Thus they are now putting their ultimate hopes on John McCain. A few weeks ago they'd have painted McCain as a traitor, but now they realize that he's pretty conservative on most issues and is the most hawkish after Rudy, and that's ultimately what they care about.

Basically, I have been terribly worried about a Huckabee candidacy and I thought that there wasn't one voting bloc in the GOP that was both larger and more fervent than the Evangelical-Christianist base. All the other groups have been betrayed in one way or another but Bush has been disastrously consistent with his entanglement with the Christian base. And they want Huckabee. So who can rally enough anti-Christian ire in the GOP base? The answer are the "security-cons" - those who vote to protect America from the screaming Arab hordes hell-bent on conquering America and making our women wear burkas.

Kristol seems to be less concerned with that and more about the ultimate prize (as he indicates early on in his column): the Supreme Court. And just like Bush, if they get the right handlers around Huckabee, they can maybe control him. The question I suspect you and I are asking is whether they think it'll be easier to destroy him in the primaries or see if he can be successfully controlled.

Because Huck is not a pure soul (he's a disgraceful liar, as we've seen in his denials about Wayne Dumond and his penchant for accepting expensive gifts) there's a good chance that he will hold out a for-sale sign soon. If he doesn't, then the GOP establishment will crucify him (ugh) and rally behind whoever is number 2 at that point (Romney, McCain or even Thompson who miraculously got #3 in Iowa and #2 in Wyoming).

Kristol and the WSJ just sent out a message to him that they will be willing to buy if he's willing to sell. What we need to look for, those of us with eyes to see detail, are signs that Huckabee is holding out that for-sale sign.

What would the sign look like? Maybe hiring a few of the "right" consultants; e.g. once Giuliani implodes once and for all, will his foreign policy team go bodily to McCain or will one or two go to Huck.

P.S. When Hillary was the presumptive (anointed) nominee, the GOP machine wanted a candidate who would be able to beat her soundly. Hence Rudy's appeal (and McCain, Romney etc). However Obama is rising and now looks strong enough to be the Democratic candidate... and he will beat the stuffing out of every one in the GOP field. With the possible exception of Huckabee. Put simpler: if Rudy was the Anti-Hillary, Huckabee may be the only one who can be an anti-Obama, and that's why Kristol/WSJ may end up supporting him.

Or at least that's why Kristol etc is sending out feelers - if Obama is nominated, then the GOP may feel they need Huckabee to have a fighting chance (or at pull a Goldwater and energize their only remaining solid base). However if Hillary pulls it off and beats Obama then they'll try to crush Huckabee to avoid a loss for what will be a decent shot at winning.

Backpost finished 2009-12-14. Note that I was correct - except Kristol found someone even more Christ-y, and more malleable, than Huck: Palin.

Hillary's Self & Party Sabotage

An interchange I had with the ever-gracious Prof. Kleiman, in response to his pointing out here that Hillary's camp is willing to sabotage Obama and the Party by giving the Republicans all the talking points they need:

One impression I get from analyzing Hillary is that she has no qualms in attacking her Democratic colleagues if they stand in the way of her ambitions. In the past few months we've seen as an unnecessary ferocity in her back-swipes against Edwards and Obama. And everybody knows that attacks during the primaries are usually more vicious than during the general - and most likely to have long-term damage.

But another Hillary crime, I fear, will be her active or passive sabotaging of any non-Hillary candidacy. I remember thinking back in 2004 that Bill (and Hillary) weren't helping Kerry nearly as much as they should have been. I was pissed back then and I had assumed that it was because they wanted to run in '08 and they wouldn't be able to do so if Kerry won in '04.

Now that it's '08 and if Hillary loses this race, she can't afford to wait until '16 -- she'll be 70 and Bill will be (in all likelihood) dead. Her last chance, if she fails now, is '12. Which means that Obama will need to lose in '08.

Which means that her attacks on Obama will be unrestrained on purpose. She needs to win now or for Obama to lose in November - and, lucky for her, both conclusions rely on the same tactics.

The silver lining is that her attacks will need to be moderated by the studies/polling that will show that negativity by her emphasizes what so many people hate about her (and thus drive down her numbers). Also, Obama seems to have teflon-ized himself with the 'new politics' rhetoric that can jiu-jitsu every overt attack into a proof that his opponents (Hillary or GOP) are just practicing 'politics as usual.'

His response:

Nice analysis; hadn't thought of it that way. On the other hand, she might want to be Majority Leader -- a job she'd be good at -- and sabotaging the campaign would get in the way of that. Also, if Obama is the nominee he's going to win, whatever she does.

My response back:

Thanks for the kudos.

I think that she would make a credible Majority Leader, but I see that job going next to Schumer who will be a *great* majority leader (I can't wait). But you're right about her ambitions may be kept in check by that possibility (which will mean she and her husband will just go for the '04 passive sabotage)

And I also believe that if Obama gets the nomination that he will win - barring any scandal that we don't know about of course.

And another angle I didn't mention: the Afro-American backlash against the Clintons if they keep up the heavy negative talk. Hillary may not care but Bill does.

Backpost finished 2009-12-14.

Why do the money-cons hate Huckabee?

An interchange between me and Prof. Kleiman of The Reality Based Community. What makes him classy is that he responds to his emails (unlike TPM or Sullivan):

Dear Dr. Kleiman,

I like the list of theories you give for why the money-cons, and the GOP DC establishment, hate Huckabee. I believe that the class-consciousness, and the Northern Elite snobbery, against Huckabee also informed the deep irrational hatred directed at Huckabee's predecessor: William Jefferson "Bubba" Clinton. Hillary is hated on her own grounds (and I am with you on all those reasons as well), but she's one of the establishment. I said it back during the 90s that "Bubba" was hated by the Press and by the GOP because he was perceived as poor white trash with delusions of grandeur. And the same thing is playing out with Huckabee.

He responded, in part, with this:

I'm sure you're right, but Fred Thompson is also pretty "trashy," and they have no objection to him. Indeed, he's probably their favorite.

Then my re-response:

I assume it's because "Hollywood" Fred Thompson was a Senator and a lobbyist. No matter how much cow-poo was on his boots when he walked into Congress, that stuff disappears pretty quickly. Governers, as you well know, are considered provincial and un-"experienced" when it comes to foreign policy. Some states can probably get away from that image (e.g. anyone from the coasts), but completely land-bound Hillbilly country?

Also, another difference between Thompson and Huckabee is the big cultural difference between Arkansas and Tennessee. I grew up both in upstate New York and in Memphis, Tennessee and TN is far more 'urbane' (especially Memphis) than the surrounding area.

Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-12-14.