Joe Lieberman’s hometown newspaper, the New Haven Register, has a daily “Soundoff” column, in which readers are invited to phone in their opinions on a question of the day for the next day’s edition. The questions range from banal everyday subjects to political topics; the respondents usually skew at least two-thirds conservative. In other words, these are exactly the voters Joe hopes to win over with his own special brand of democonservatism. Anyway, the responses to this morning’s question, “how do you rate Sen. Lieberman’s job performance?” are not particularly encouraging for our boy Joe. (The section’s not online, so I’m posting a scan. Click on the excerpt below to see all the responses.)
Update 1: Welcome, Kossackians! Take off your shoes, stay awhile.
Update 2: Potential Lieberman challenger Ned Lamont needs 1,000 Connecticut residents to sign up as volunteers, here.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:38 am
There’s a Hank Williams tune called “No No Joe”. It’s about Stalin, but some enterprising musician out there could probably adapt it as a campaign song for Lamont.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:23 am
Why is Lieberman even considered a Democrat? What about him distinguishes him from a Republican? Small wonder he was on the list of Dems who didn’t vote for an Alito filibuster.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:25 am
I think the good people of CT need to take this guy out of office. CT is a safe state. Even if we DO lose a seat to the Republicans, well, that’s part of the risk that you take to get people like him out of the party. I’m sick of the Dems enabling these maniacs. We have to put up with the Kerrys and Clintons right now. We don’t have to put up with Lieberman.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:33 am
As Tom has pointed out so well in his cartoons, trying to emulate Republicans is a no-win strategy for Democrats. People who’d like to vote for a Democrat get turned off, while people who would like to vote for a Republican are never going to support a Democrat no matter how right-wing he is.
But it is a good way to get massive amounts of campaign funding, which I suppose is why they do it.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Guys like him are why I am a solid third-party voter when a candidate is available (and if the dems loose a few seats because of it, so be it).
January 31st, 2006 at 12:10 pm
I didn’t like Joe when he was the VP candidate, and I like him even less now. When God invented the word sanctimonious, he had Lieberman in mind.
What makes it pathetic is, he lacks any morality, except to his ideology. Israel.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
great guy!
January 31st, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Is anyone else kinda sketched out by how much these people are outraged by his “support for Israel?”
I mean, not that he doesn’t come in for some knocks in that department, but I think “lilly-livered weenie and catastrophic embarassment to his party (which if you’ve been paying attention, is fucking saying something)” covers all the important ground without seeming to raise issues of his ethnicity/religion. Still, as Tom seems to be saying, these are the kinds of people he needs to win over: those who automatically hate him anyway.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Remember the “kiss” between Lieberman and Bush after the 2005 SOTU?
http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13889164&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517515&rfi=6
January 31st, 2006 at 12:32 pm
At first comments by the likes of Sal “… (ultra-Liberal)…” and Al “His vote against Alito can be seen as anti-Italian.” gave me pause, then I woke up and realized “whack-jobs” like them aren’t going to be voting for any Democrat (duh). You’re right. the comments by the disaffected Dem.s are a very significant sign that we may finally be on the verge of ridding ourselves of this worthless Democrat-in-name-only neo-con stooge.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Remember when Joe joined Gore’s team as VP? ONLY thing he was right leaning on was School Vouchers ! Since that time, he has voted with the Republicans on numerous issues, in an effort to push his aspirations for higher office! Yesterday’s YES to Cloture pushed him over the top. TIME TO GET RID OF LIEBERMAN. He is a Cancer on the party !
January 31st, 2006 at 12:38 pm
“like a breath of fresh air”.
yeah, a breath of fresh air from my BUTTLIPS, with attendant sulfurous aroma.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:45 pm
He’s publicly stated that if he loses a primary challenge, he’ll register as an independent and run anyway. Wow. This guy is so wedded to power that he’d betray the party he wanted to lead just two years ago. For chrissakes, the guy was, for all intents and purposes, elected Vice President of the United States. I guess that taste of power got to him and he has to have more, more, more.
In his lust and pursuit of power, he will lose power. Good riddance, Droopy.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:49 pm
He’s one of the only Democrats I would rather see lose his seat altogether rather than continue. The other was Tom Daschle. I just think he’s coasting and it’s probably time to make him consider why he wants the job in the first place.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Cap’n Phealy proposed… and here’s an attempt at lyrics. Wouldn’t make a good theme song… I think… for Lamont. But it’d make a fun crowd-rouser to sing before the candidate arrived.
Now look here Joe, quit acting smart
Stop being that old brazen sort
Don’t you go sellin’ this country short
No, no Joe
Just because you think you’ve found
The system that we know ain’t sound
Don’t you go throwin’ your weight around
No, no Joe
‘Cause George Bush’s tryin’ it and Nixon tried it
Mussolini tried it, too
Now they’re all sittin’ around a fire and did you know something?
They’re saving a place for you
Now Joe you ought to get it clear
You can’t push folks around with fear
‘Cause we don’t scare easy around here
No, no Joe
What makes you do the things you do
You gettin’ folks mad at you
Don’t bite off more’n you can chew
No, no Joe
Now you got a scrap that can’t win
You don’t know what you’re getting in
Don’t go around leading with your chin
No, No Joe
Now you’ve had votes, some important votes
But you’re acting like a clown
‘Cause man we’ve got hopes, a mess of hopes
And you’ve been caught with your votes down
Don’t go throwin’ out your chest
You’ll pop the buttons off your vest
You’re playing with a hornets’ nest
No, no Joe
You know, you think you’re somebody we should dread
Just because you’re gettin’ red
You better get that foolishness out of your head
No, no Joe
And you might be itchin’ for a fight
But we’re thinkin’ your bark’s worse than your bite
And you’re sitting on a keg of dynamite
No, no Joe
January 31st, 2006 at 12:56 pm
I just can’t believe he ever ran for president. No one is probably done a worse job of estimated his appeal to voters.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Yep… time for Joe to go. I don’t live in your state or I’d work for Lamont. A few months ago I sent him an e-mail offering him a free ticket and money to move his family to Israel. I asked him to call me when he’s ready to go. Imagine trying to run a foreign policy with him sitting in the VP chair!! Wow…
Bye bye Joe!
January 31st, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Christopher, in answer to your question. Yeah, I noticed that, pretty ugly. (And I am definitely not Israel’s biggest booster.)
January 31st, 2006 at 1:07 pm
I turned on CSPAN last week, hoping to watch the Alito hearings live, and what did I see? Jomentum, on a Senate Panel, spewing praise for republican Senate colleagues!
Do us all a favor Joe, and just leave the party, you northern Zell Miller!
January 31st, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Some of the people were pissed because he voted “no” this morning on the Alito confimation. Holy Joe, just can’t win….
January 31st, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Did anyone catch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart the other night? He called Lieberman “Droopy Dog” and did an outrageous impression of him! If the Democrats ever want to hold power again, they need to get old, sour, fence-straddling farts like him out!
January 31st, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Seems many a voter is upset about him voting against Alito and pandering to the far left crowd. Methinks if he’s going to continue trying to appease the Koshole crowd, he’ll be in more jeopardy.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:28 pm
I was surprised by the number of comments about Israel because our local papers in Seattle are too gunshy to print that many messages questioning allegiance to Israel.
But then it dawned on me that the messages could easily by plants and actually be the first salvo of a core part of Lieberman’s back against the wall strategy: a sidestep Aikido move to deflect criticism of his explicit moves to the Republican-right by creating a subcurrent message that the movement to oust him is a campaign against Israel and anti-semitic. This dog may be able to limp through one more campaign hunt no matter how much an opponent talks about the police state, Bush-kissing, and health care. Any opponent better have thought this through ahead of time and be ready with an immediate counter-strategy and no, I don’t know what that might be.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Okay, the guy’s no beauty but don’t you think that’s uncommonly republican-like to stoop so low as to bash someone on their looks? There is enough in Lieberman’s record as well as his appearances at republican events, sucking up to republican power brokers, etc. that no one needs to stoop so low as to say anything about his physical appearance. You lose/we lose credibility and who the hell wants to be a republican wannabe like Ann Coulter anyway - physically attractive on the outside and total vermin on the inside.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Bye, Joe…we need Democrats of courage and conviction in the Senate to stand up to Bush and to retake America - that is NOT you.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Here’s his take on Abu Ghraib:
“The behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American … I cannot help but say, however, that those responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq, working to liberate Iraq and protect our security, have never apologized. And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never (apologized)….
The conflation is breathtaking. It sounds like Cheney talking. Time to shut down Joe’s Connecticut Bushco Kool-aid stand.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:50 pm
For Lieberman and all those other Democrats who continue to try and play both sides instead of taking a strong position:
If you only stand in the middle of the road, eventually you will get hit by a car.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:54 pm
I’ve never really wanted to live in CT again, but voting against Joementum would be pretty awesome. I wonder why he’s ticking off all the Italian-Americans? Just because of Alito? That’s funny. Or did he say something against the Sopranos?
January 31st, 2006 at 2:30 pm
It is simply not anti-Semitic to point out that Joe has put Israel’s interests above America’s. That’s just fact! Let’s not get so outrageously politically correct that we obfuscate the truth. He is in favor of war in the middle east because it helps Israel. Frankly, I think the time when Israel as a needed ally,(long viewed as our only democratic partner in the area), has long passed. It disappeared with the danger of communism and the fall of the Soviet Union. More than anything, I think that the policies of Israel toward the Palestinians has incited the rest of the Arab world as much as Bush’s war has. Joe’s support of that policy hurts America in the eyes of the world.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:54 pm
For heaven’s sake, knock off the Israel bull$hit already, would ya? While I might not approve of everything it does, it is the only real Democracy in that armpit of the world and there’s nothing wrong with supporting it. It’s the only place women have equality–despite the desires of the ultra orthodox jews–, where all people can worship as they like (Try building a church in Saudi Arabia!) and certainly one of the few places where gays and lesbians aren’t jailed, tortured or hung–though if the Christian wingnuts and their puppets in Washington and the GOP have their way, gays in this country better start taking their freedom more seriously! I don’t condmen Lieberman for being pro-Israel and you people that accuse him of putting Israeli interests above American interests are the same idiots that frighten a lot of Americans away from voting Democrat these days! I can find fault with Joementum on a lot of things, including his lack-of-sack in standing up to Republicans, but give this Israel crap a break! The Palestinians are no saints, or haven’t you heard about their recent elections???
January 31st, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Joe Lieberman is a Republican with a Democrat’s name tag. He, along with the Republicns do the party much more harm than good. We would be better off without him.
He wrote me today, thanking me for my views, which were far different than his, and said he could only answer if I were a constituent, which I’m not.
Our Congress needs to understand something, we don’t necessarily have to be a constituent to work against them on the Internet. I live in a red state, my LACK of Representation are both Republican. Whenever I complain about something, all I get is a letter with glowing reports of Bush.
In this day and time, we need a more open way to respond to all of Congress, not just the ones we have in office over our particular state. I wanted to write to all of Congress about Alito, both Democrats and Republicans. With today’s set up, it would have taken hours.
January 31st, 2006 at 3:54 pm
I gave my $40 to Ned yesterday, but I didn’t sign up for the ‘help with website’ thing he wanted.
Kos said to get the full flavor of this Soundoff be sure to scan it. My eyeballs are, but I’m still not getting the full picture.
Actually, when talking about Lieberman I probably wouldn’t want to, anyway.
January 31st, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Lieberman is an unapologetic supporter of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, and I hate that. BUT….why are Democrats giving money to his challenger? Last time I checked, the Democrats do not control the Senate. Wouldn’t this money be better spent in close open Senate races where the Democrats have a chance to pick up seats?
I know it’s popular to say that “Joe Lieberman is a Republican with a Democrat’s name tag.” But it’s not that simple. With the very notable exception of foreign policy, Lieberman is a reliable vote on a range of progressive issues. With respect to labor, the environment, and social security, Lieberman really is a Democrat.
I don’t like Joe Lieberman and I wish we had a more progressive Democrat in his seat. Nevertheless, my main priority is making sure the Republicans no longer control the Senate in 2006. There’s a lot of damage that Bush can do *domestically* if Republicans continue to control both houses of Congress. If and when the Democrats take control of the Senate, then I’ll start considering giving money to campaigns to remove less-than-ideal Democrats from their seats.
January 31st, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I would rather see a more progressive Demmocrat, but, except for his support for the war, he is pretty much a mainstream Democrat. If a third party candidate challenges him, Connecticut would probably end up with a Republican Senator.
January 31st, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Christopher - people are criticizing joementum for his support of likud israeli policies, not for being jewish. huge difference and there’s nothing creepy whatsoever about lambasting israel’s policies.
January 31st, 2006 at 4:58 pm
“huge difference and there’s nothing creepy whatsoever about lambasting israel’s policies. ”
Actually, yes there is something creepy and pretty damned hypocritical when you lambaste Israel for it’s policies but say dick about some of it’s neighbors, including Hammas, that say it should be wiped off the face of the earth! I’m a little more concerned about Iran getting the atomic bomb than I am with Israel building a wall to keep suicide bombers away from their restaurants, shopping malls and school buses!
January 31st, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Is it just me, or does Conn. sound like it has a lot of anti-semitic bigots and Italians too stupid to understand that voting against Alito is not voting against Italians in general?
Am I really supposed to beleive that the people who responded are up to date on Likud party politics? Nonsense.
Just for fun, my opinion of Joe? He’ll get to spend eternity debating Zell Miller. Heaven or Hell? You call it.
January 31st, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Those who voted for Alito should be very, very afraid. Unfortunately, so should the rest of us. The threat facing Roe v Wade is not to be minimized but Alito’s views on the expansion of the executive power should scare the hell out of anyone - Italians or not.
As for support for Israel, he’s entitled to support (personally) anything he likes but he’s “supposed” to be voting the will of his constituents. As soon as everyone gets past that “criticism of Israel = antisemitism” the better chance we all have of there being negotiating lasting peace between those two countries (Israel and Palestine).
January 31st, 2006 at 6:09 pm
The problem with Libermann support for Israel is that Israel suck billions of dollars a year, but the reality is that that money is the money of minorities in this country. See what happens after Katherina? Do you see in which state are school in inner cities? Do you know why the inmate populations continue to skyrock? Why American need to paid for a Wall of Shame? Why American minorities need to pay for Israel theocrats who do nothing but preach hatred?
At the end of the day many of those millions come back to the US in the form of political contributions trought IPAC (Polard, Franklin…and others) to influence legislation and there is where Libermann, Lantos, Feisntein and other Israel fisters stand. Those dual patriots are in itself souspicious of coluding with a fith columne embedded in the press, their interest intercept with the evangelical dispersacionalist that seek the Rapture and hence the destruction of Israel. In a word they Liberman ideology comes first it is not a secular but a religious one. Who would think of Abranoff wrong a couple of years ago? Taking money from Indian minorities to fund snipers schools and death squats in Israel ocupaied territories. Off course nobody, for Abranoff is an orthodox Jew. So to stop, the religious war by proxy, that Jews have brough over American one need to stop the Libermann of the Democract and republicans alike.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Censor,
Is this claptrap something you intend to include in your scholarly follow-up to “THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION?” There are plenty of domestic blood-suckers, including a lot of politicians and local officials, sucking up the money in the Gulf Sates. New Orleans was one of the most lucrative convention cities in the country, yet the streets, roads and public services in New Orleans were dreadful and the citizens took almost a perverse pride in the corruption of its officials. Please spare me the “Jew” card! You’re a bigot and when you’re not blaming the Jews, I bet you’re off somewhere bashing the gays! Get lost, you mental midget! We see you for what you really are…someone that would run to join the NSDAP if it was a viable party again!
January 31st, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Okay, take it easy, kids. Watch the name calling.
About Conn. and bigots — I tried to provide context for the column, but it’s generally dominated by cranky conservatives, and given that it’s a phone-in thing, rather than on the web, my guess is it skews elderly. It’s not representative of Connecticut, it’s representative of people who are likely to take the time to phone up and answer their questions.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Kurt:
I am glad that we agree who are blood suckers. You see, as far as secular Jews do not oppose the crazy Zionist mentality and cover them at every step of the way, you are going to bring upon yourself the worst. So why you do not denounce them loudelly? And please let me know in final analysis, the conflict between Muslins and Jews is not a religious one?
We need secular people with sound and rational mind set not religious bigots, otherways the arms marchands bood suckers in Isrel and this country will be the winners. If you are an ardent defendant of Israel you welcome to leave, then we resolve half of the blood suckers problem.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Last warning: take it easy.
January 31st, 2006 at 7:00 pm
There are a lot more secular Jews in the world than ’secular muslims.’ In fact, in most Muslim countries, you are considered an outcast if you referred to yourself as ’secular.’ I agree, there are a lot of problems in the world…most it seems by religion, but not more than greed and there’s plenty of greed to go around there, especially under the Bush junta!
January 31st, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Look, anybody has a right to say anything they want about any government in the world. Israel is a country, with a government, and statements critical of Israel are every bit as appropriate as statements critical of, oh, Russia. I do agree that countries like, say, Egypt, don’t get the heat they deserve compared to Israel (and we pay for much of their military as well). But there is a huge leap between that and attacking critics of Israel as anti-Jewish. It’s nonsense. It would be like calling critics of France “Anti-Catholic”.
January 31st, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Let me explain something to those of you (like Sara above) who say that it is unfair to single out Israel and not criticize its neighbors. There are a number of answers to this:
1) The US gives a level of support to Israel that is unparalleled in US history. Since 1967, according to a recent economic study, Israel has cost this country more than 1.6 trillion dollars in foreign aid. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
We give Israel over 4 billion dollars each year, which is about 1/3 of all foreign aid that the US gives to other countries. We give this aid to a country that has a per capita income that is higher than many poorer states in the US, like Louisiana and Arkansas. This money is given with no strings attached, and Israel is also the only foreign country that doesn’t have to registar its lobbying organizations as agents of a foreign government (this while they spy on us again again, ie. see the recent AIPAC, Larry Franklin affair). In essense, since we have supplied each citizen of Israel with almost 1000 dollars in subsidized income per annum , we have a responsibility to comment on and criticize Israel since we ourselves are complicit in the barbaric things it does. Indeed, we have a much greater responsibility to criticize them because they do this oppression with our resources– just as we have a greater responsibility to criticize our own country when it does unjust things.
2)The US does not exactly stand by while oppression occurs within other countries in the region. Compare for example the US reaction to Saddam’s treatment of the Kurd’s to the US reaction to Israel’s oppression of the palestinians. Or compare the US reaction to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, which Lebanon had requested in order to end its civil war, to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians. Compare the US response to pretty much oppression in any other country to the support the US shows toward Israel and you will understand why many of us are so tired of supporting that country.
3) As GWB is going to say in his state of the union tonight, this country is completely addicted to oil, 40 percent of which comes from an area of the world that despises us for our support of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Since oil is the one sine qua non of our economy, we have indeed a responsibility to do a better job of making sure that our foreign support of certain oppressive regimes like Israel is challenged. We must do this, if we ourselves are going to survive and prosper. The world is not growing any more oil people, and unless you walk to work and refuse to fly on an airplane, your life is as dependent on it as the rest of us.
In short, our henceforth blind support for Israel is not only wrong and immoral, soon it will also be deeply injurious to our own economic well-being.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Oh, you also have to give up plastics and heating your house as well, since more and more of the heating oil and natural gas will come from that region in the very near future.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:58 pm
I think >all
January 31st, 2006 at 10:59 pm
I think *all* of the comments about Israel in the newspaper piece were anti-Semitic. Consider this - Many prominent American politicians support right-wing Israeli policies more aggressively and more blindly than does Mr Lieberman. Tom DeLay is a good example. But does anyone ever accuse DeLay of “doing everything for Israel” or having his primary loyalty to Israel? No, only Jewish politicians get accused of that, because bigots or ignorant people think it plausible for a Jew to be disloyal. The same charge against DeLay would sound absurd, although it is objectively more sound. Look at Censor’s comments here. Censor named several Jewish lawmakers as “Israel firsters,” “dual patriots” and a “fifth column.” Note also in the “Register” piece, Bill in New Haven, who said Lieberman reminded him of “Judas.” Please pay attention, people. Whether you like Israel’s policies or not, anti-Semitism is very much alive in this country. And I am sad to see that it is growing on the left.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Michael Neumann wrote in The Politics of Anti-Semitism edited by Alexander Cockburn of http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann0604.html
-’Anti-Semitism’, properly and narrowly speaking, doesn’t mean hatred of Semites; that is to confuse etymology with definition. It means hatred of Jews. But here, immediately, we come up against the venerable shell game of Jewish identity: “Look! We’re a religion! No! A race! No! A cultural identity! Sorry-a religion!” When we tire of this game, we get suckered into another: “Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism!” quickly alternates with” Don’t confuse Zionism with Judaism! How dare you, you anti-Semite!”
Which bring us to the dual loyalty game. But do not confuse Neoconservatives with Jewish as some wanted to claim today because it is nothing but a confluence of Evangelical religious and political zealots in a bellicose sphere foster in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Just to clarified the Jewish question bring about by the authors of this imbroglio, the latest professor Israel Shahak did the following observation that is worth of reading:
“My own early political conversion from admirer of Ben-Gurion to his dedicated opponent began exactly with such an issue. In 1956 I eagerly swallowed all of Ben-Gurion’s political and military reasons for Israel initiating the Suez War, until he (in spite of being an atheist, proud of his disregard of the commandments of Jewish religion) pronounced in the Knesset on the third day of that war, that the real reason for it is ‘the restoration of the kingdom of David and Solomon’ to its Biblical borders. At this point in his speech, almost every Knesset member spontaneously rose and sang the Israeli national anthem. To my knowledge, no Zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion’s idea that Israeli policies must be based (within the limits of pragmatic considerations) on the restoration of the Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state. Indeed, close analysis of Israeli grand strategies and actual principles of foreign policy, as they are expressed in Hebrew, makes it clear that it is ‘Jewish ideology’, more than any other factor, which determines actual Israeli policies. The disregard of Judaism as it really is and of ‘Jewish ideology’ makes those policies incomprehensible to foreign observers who usually know nothing about Judaism except crude apologetics.”
To further clarified professor Shahak views I want to put his remarks in to context and offers a more recent analysis for anyone peace of mind. But then again, we may be to busy in American with the next run away bride, Oscars nominations, Supeball, next Oprah scandal and so forth, just thow some entretainement and convinience that will act like sand in their eyes.
February 1st, 2006 at 12:56 am
Loads and loads of folks in the American government excuse Israel’s every misdeed, not just Holy Joe. We’ve been doing it for 40 years now. I’m hardly one to defend Lieberman, and hardly one to defend the Israeli government, and I shan’t defend either here, but you’d be hard pressed to find a similar thing written about a fundamentalist Christian politician, some of whom have said the same thing. Those comments were barely disguised for what they really were, using Joe Lieberman as a proxy for Judiasm.
Of course, as Tom said, this is a group of cranky conservatives griping about Joe. Anti-Jewish sentiment (I don’t use the term “anti-Semitism,” it’s misleading) thrives among such folks. I shan’t say there’s none in left-wing circles — I’ve seen it — but I’ll disagree with J. Hertzberg — it isn’t growing on the left. This is just a neo-con meme that has somehow gained currency. What is there is on display since Israel is so much a topic nowadays. If anything, the fact that we don’t have the Bolsheviks to kick around anymore lowers the number of left-wing Jew-haters.
Kurt: There are almost certainly more secular Muslims than secular Jews in the world. The rate of secularism among Jews is probably higher than among Muslims (and among Christians as well — I would think secularism would help a minority religion in a country, but I’m biased since I’m a member of the one “religion” that can’t have a non-secular variant), but we’re talking about a religion that has a few million adherents compared to one that counts a fifth of the globe. There are many places where secular Islam is the rule, not the exception — Syria, Indonesia, the Sunni Triangle of Iraq, so on and so forth. Let me put it this way — if even only one in a hundred Muslims is secular (and the rate is higher than that), that’s about the same number as all Jews in the world, secular or religious: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904108.html
February 1st, 2006 at 3:43 am
Lieberman: a Vichy among Vichys.
Yeah, we lost the filibuster. But it sure separated the sheep from the goats, didn’t it! What do we do now? We keep working! Vichy Dems ain’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
Today we’ve got our POST-FILIBUSTER GAME PLAN, PART I up and in play. It’s simple: contact every Senator who did vote our way, repeatedly, at their DC and district offices and emails, and say “thank you.” Good manners, yes. Reinforces good behavior, yes. And it also reinforces the reality, new to many politicians, that there are substantial numbers of voters out here who PAY ATTENTION to WHO voted HOW. We don’t just groan at the outcome. We analyze it, and dole out rewards and punishments.
So calling and saying thank you — a lot of times — with the same sort of doggedness we possessed before the cloture vote — is an important part of our advocacy plan to take back our Party, our Congress and our nation. You’re sick and tired of making phone calls? Me, too. Now get thee to http://vichydems.blogspot.com and do it anyway.
Thanks!
February 1st, 2006 at 8:34 am
Apparently there are posters who wish to put labels on anyone who dares criticize Israel. We are called idiots if we disagree. Attacking people with differing views is an attempt to stifle debate. All posters have a right to express my opinions, and to belittle those opinions with name calling is both sophomoric and mean-spirited.
As to all of the billions in aid we give to Israel each year, there is one stipulation I know of and that is that none of it was to be used to build illegal settlements and that the US was to be informed of how the money was used. The settlements were built and we weren’t informed. How did that happen????
AIPAC wields far too much influence in Congress and I personally favor removing all lobbyists from the picture, including AIPAC…not likely to happen, but most certainly all foreign lobbying should cease.
February 1st, 2006 at 10:56 am
A correction to a mis-type in my last post. I meant to say that all posters have a right to express THEIR opinions (not mine).