Joe Lieberman: Man of the People. If that people is named Joe Lieberman!

In September, 2000, on a heated and very competitive campaign for the opening seat for the Presidency of the United States, Democrats were facing two fronts from the Republican right and their own left. During that campaign, Senator Joe Lieberman stated, "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush." And it was Nader's appearance in that national election, just another vital component, that cost the Democrats the Presidency. So is it a surprise that Mr. Lieberman would turn around and potentially send another Republican to Washington by splitting his party? If the history of this politician is any indication, you bet.

You see, when Justifyin' Joe was tapped for the Vice President position in '00, he could have resigned his seat in Connecticut to allow the attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, to win (there are no guarantees, but many political analysts clam this to be true). That way, the Senate would have been 50-50 with a Gore/Lieberman win, letting Vice President Lieberman break it in favor of a Democrat victory. Since, however, the Governor of Connecticut in 2000 was a Republican, the empty seat vacated by a victorious Lieberman would have been appointed to a Republican making the Senate 51 - 49 in favor of the Republicans.

And this wasn't the first time Geronimo Joe went against the party grain. While President Clinton was under intense attack for his peccadillo (remember the good old days when that was our national nightmare?) Joe was there to make sure he stood for family values decrying that sex in the Oval Office was part of a "mind-set that has helped to threaten the integrity and stability of the family". So where is his "deep disappointment and personal anger" at a President on perennial vacation while his nation watches the Middle East burn to the ground? And when Mr. Lieberman said: "Except now these feelings have gone beyond my personal dismay to a larger, graver sense of loss for our country, a reckoning of the damage that the President's conduct has done to the proud legacy of his presidency..." was he referring to the body bags flown home daily of our soldiers? Was he referring to a war he voted for and to which we still have no clear understanding of its misleading origins or potentially disastrous end? Was he referring to the failed response to Hurricane Katrina? Illegal wiretapping? The scandals surrounding Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay? When Mr. Lieberman read that vicious diatribe was he referring to the indictment of "Scooter" Libby or the Valeria Plame affair or the fact that this administration hired a gay porn actor to pretend he was part of the press corps? No. He was referring to illicit oral sex.

I'm not saying that President Clinton had a right to hold prurient doctor exams in our nation's executive suites, what I am saying is that Lieberman's priorities are short-sighted, egocentric and pointless. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. It's a matter of character and Joe Lieberman's character is merely an exercise in expedience. The DNC will of course attempt to dissuade Mr. Lieberman from running but that won't stop Jumping Joe from leaping to the Independent ticket to make sure that he gives it one more shot at putting his flawed, myopic goals over his own party's.