Interview with the Apostate

Politics Central has just posted a Roger Simon interview with Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Sen. Lieberman, as most of you know, was recently beaten in the Democratic primary for his seat by a “netroots” upstart, Ned Lamont. Sen. Lieberman has decided to run in the November election as an independent, and — as of the most recent poll I saw — is well ahead of his opponent.

Politics Central has both video and audio of the interview, as well as a transcript. Here’s a quote:

Joe Lieberman…you know, my record about ninety percent of the time I vote with the majority of Democrats in the Senate but I happen to have had a very strong record on defense and foreign policy and on the specific case, on the Iraq war. And the most alarming reality of the primary was that a lot of Democrats in Connecticut — really over forty-five percent at one poll — said they thought I had done a good job as senator for the state, the country. They knew that they agreed with me on most issues but they disagreed with me on Iraq. And on that basis, they were going to vote against me. And that’s not healthy. It happened to be me who suffered from it.

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I’ve always respected Joe Lieberman. During the 2000 election campaign I watched him compromise his former stances on many issues and pander to his Democrat base, but he never backed down from his support of a strong national defense, no matter how much the party moved in the opposite direction.

But 95% loyalty wasn’t good enough for the new kingmakers; it had to be 100%. Now he’s on his own, and will probably win the election. We’ll see what happens next.

2 thoughts on “Interview with the Apostate

  1. We need Joe to counterbalance the grumpy socialist Bernie Sanders — as featured in Fahrenheit 9/11, btw — who’ll be coming to town from Vermont.

  2. The Anti-Bush Party (Democrat Party values are long-gone at this point) and the MSM are obsessed with a monomania that pervades pretty much their entire schtick. That is somehow “proving” to America and the world that it was a mistake to have ever elected GWB (and, by extension, that the majority of Americans are morons).

    Absolutely critical to this platform is “proving” that military action in Iraq was and remains a mistake – despite clear, bipartisan support in Congress back when the action was taken and the fact that, when viewed with an eye to reason and history, it was and is the right thing to do. Witness the recent blurbs from multiple directions (NIE, Woodward, et al.) claiming, essentially, that Iraq is going down in flames and making us more vulnerable in the process. Of course… that’s not “fear-mongering”.

    No dissent can or will be tolerated by the MSM or the Anti-Bush Party on this score. Lieberman, despite his solid voting record with respect to what used to be core Democrat values, was the sacrificial lamb to demonstrate that intolerance. As far as the hard-core Anti-Bush Party is concerned, Bush and his policies must be stopped and he impeached for “lying” and “war crimes” – though the heavens fall! Joe chose not to buy into that suicidal idiocy.

    Lieberman’s been my Senator throughout his entire term in office. I’ve never liked him much. Until now. And unlike past elections, I’ll be voting for him in a few weeks.

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