Lest we forget . . .
. . . the number one rule of Washington is that high-level political officials should not be held accountable, even reputationally, for anything they do (Look Forward, Good Citizens, Not Backwards).
But the blood on Joe Lieberman's hands is accounted for by far more than support for the Iraq War. He's long been one of Washington's most indiscriminate, toxic and deceitful supporters of aggressive war generally. Even as the two wars he cheered on were spiraling out of control, he was repeatedly urging new American attacks against Iran, Syria and, most recently, Yemen. Lieberman — who, needless to say, never served in the military nor have any of his children — devoted his entire career to attempting to send other Americans' children to fight war after war after war. In sum, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch put it when examining the muddled history of Lieberman's opposition to the war in Vietnam: "the only war he ever opposed was the only war he might actually have had to fight in." But, of course, being a relentless warmonger while cowardly hiding yourself and your family far away from the wars you cheer on is not remotely inconsistent with being a Man of Decency and Conscience, as David Brooks and his many Beltway admirers will be the first to tell you.
Then there's Lieberman's vaunted "civility." He was not only one of the most vocal war supporters, but was responsible for some of the most toxic and McCarthyite efforts to stigmatize war opposition as illegitimate and even treasonous. In 2005, he infamously lectured Democratic war critics that "in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril," and in 2007 used the language of treason to pose leading questions to Gen. David Petraeus to induce the General's agreement that war opposition "would give the enemy some comfort." Worse, Lieberman often bolstered these smears with outright lies, such as when he claimed on Meet the Press that we were "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy we're fighting in Iraq today." Behold his grand civility.
And then there's the leading role Lieberman played in lending Democratic support to the whole litany of Bush/Cheney assaults on basic liberties. He defended the "Bush interrogation program" and even waterboarding, and was one of only two Democrats to vote against banning it. He led the way — along with his close friends John McCain and Lindsey Graham — in enacting the Military Commissions Act, which explicitly denied all detainees the right to contest their detention in a court of law: a measure so repressive that the Supreme Court in Boumediene struck it down as unconstitutional, citing Alexander Hamilton's warning that "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." Once the Court re-established the habeas right which Lieberman and his comrades snuffed out, it turned out, as federal courts found, that there was no credible evidence to justify the detention of a huge percentage of remaining detainees at Guantanamo: innocent people who would have been imprisoned indefinitely to this day — without a shred of due process – if Lieberman had his way. . . .
Then there's the bill introduced last year by Lieberman and McCain — the so-called "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act" — which is probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act. It would literally empower the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect — including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil. The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they "may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," which everyone expects to last decades, at least. It's basically a bill designed to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to American citizen Jose Padilla or what was done to Japanese-Americans during World War II — arrest them on U.S. soil and imprison them for years in military custody with no charges. (Greenwald–see original for more to set the record straight on Lieberman and for links to sources.)
And let's not forget how he put the final nail in the public-option and medicare buy-in coffin. But hey, give the guy a break–he voted to repeal DADT.
Greenwald's on a roll with this one. Here's how he closes the post out:
Even more significant is how this Democratic praise for Lieberman reveals just how bipartisan the Washington consensus on most issues truly is. When Lieberman ran for re-election in 2006, his most vocal support came from places like The Weekly Standard, National Review, and Commentary Magazine; Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol and right-wing radio hosts cheered for his victory. But a mere four years later, he's branded in The Washington Post as a "Democratic hero" and leading Democrats rush forward to praise him. As happens so often, the two sides who — in our political theater — are endlessly presented as being polar opposites, intractably hostile to one another, in fact find common ground with amazing frequency. The extremely bipartisan and quite genuine love for Joe Lieberman in Washington circles (notwithstanding the contempt of his own constituents) illustrates that as well as anything else. . .
Blood-stained hands are far too common to be bothersome (it's part of the D.C. uniform); servitude to lobbyists and corporations is the central Article of Faith, not a ground for embarrassment or disgrace; assaults on core liberties is how Strength and Seriousness are demonstrated; and "centrism" and "principled independence" are the glorifying names given to status quo perpetuation and loyalty to the factions who run Washington. Lieberman isn't widely admired across the Washington spectrum and in both parties despite his aberrational acts; he's admired precisely because he's the perfect face of what that culture is and what it values.
It's the culture of Empire, a culture that shapes the minds of both parties within the Beltway. Liebermann was its faithful servant–a model of imperial virtue, and that's why all the Beltway encomiums to Lieberman are so apt, so decorous.
Public opinion no longer matters; only the will of the Empire does. It's good that the people of Connecticut are sick of Lieberman's act, that they finally figured out that he was fighting for the state's insurance and defense industries but not for them. But the Empire will find others to replace him. He is, in fact, a dime a dozen.
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