We Must Be Kind to Senator Lieberman

[iamjoy]

Now many of you may think I'm crazy, or deserved to get flamed. I'm not trying to start a flame war here, I'm trying to be practical.

I have seen such vitriol directed toward Joe Lieberman in these forums. I admit, he pisses off me too.

But strangely, politics seems to be a game where your opponent one day is your ally the next. So he lost the nomination and ran as an Independent. Big hairy deal. If he's willing to "forgive" the Democrats who opposed his election, we should be willing to overlook his running after losing the party's nomination.

Iraq. I know many Democrats are angry at Lieberman for his continued support of the Bush administration's war. Whatever. When we call for Lieberman's ouster, we are only further isolating him. Symbolically, we are choosing "force" over "diplomacy" - and look where such a choice has gotten us in other disputes.

Senator Lieberman's single vote on this issue or that issue is largely insignificant. Consider that Senator Lieberman is the difference between a Republican controlled Senate and a Democratic controlled one. Forget about Iraq for just a moment. A Democratic controlled Judiciary is the only hope of stopping Dubya from appointing radical right-wing activist judges. Admittedly, it is a slender one, but without the Democratic controlling that committee, there is no hope. Senator Lieberman is the difference between James Inhofe (Global Climate Change naysayer) or Barbara Boxer chairing the Senate Committee on Environment and Energy. With Senator Lieberman on our side, Ted Kennedy is chair of the committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, rather than some corporate shill.

Senator Lieberman is with us on Choice. He is with us on the Environment. He is with us on Labor Issues. On almost all issues, he is with us. We would do better to remind Lieberman of that and to focus on the issues that unite us rather than trying to use Iraq as a wedge to drive him away and risk sacrificing progress on these other vital issues.