Burnt Orange Report

In Defense of Joe Lieberman

By Andrew Dobbs

Okay, so its well known that up until now I have supported Howard Dean for President and that while I am tentatively still aligned with him I am moving towards John Edwards or just a general ABB position. Still, I am dismayed at the Lieberman-bashing that I see around the web. To wit, Daily Kos has a poll up asking if you will support the Dem candidate no matter what. While "Any Democrat" is leading with 72% of the vote, "Anybody but Lieberman" is second with 17%, the only other choice with more than 2%. Many of the posts here and elsewhere savagely bash Lieberman for various positions.

So what's the big deal? Why do people hate Lieberman so much? His lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 20%, maybe a little high but fairly average for a Democrat. Dennis Kucinich had a rating of 19% before his election year switch on abortion. John Edwards is at 15%, meaning on average he votes liberal on a single additonal vote than Lieberman each year. Dick Gephardt is at 12%, meaning he's better on 2 votes. Bob Graham, who many seem to want for Vice President, is at 18%. Furthermore, 20% is better than any Republican in the US Senate by a longshot. Jim Jeffords (a former Republican) is at 26%, Olympia Snowe is at 52%, Lincoln Chafee is at 47% and John McCain is at a whopping 84%. More importantly, the liberal activist organization Americans for Democratic Action gives Lieberman an 85% on issues important to liberals in 2002, identical to John Kerry and a solid 15% higher than John Edwards.

Furthermore, Lieberman is right where it counts. The AFL-CIO gives him a lifetime rating of 82%, 113 pro-union votes to 24 non-union votes. John Kerry is only at 90%, meaning that he is only a couple of votes a year on average away from Lieberman land. The only reason he isn't much higher is because he votes right on trade issues- not selling out international capitalism to appease union bosses. Jeffords is at 46% in this rating, Chafee at 53%. Lieberman votes with the NAACP 94% of the time, the Human Rights Campaign (the largest gay rights group in the country) 100% of the time, Planned Parenthood 100% of the time, the National Right to Life Committee 0% of the time, NARAL 100% of the time, the League of Conservation Voters 88% of the time, the American Medical Association 100% of the time, the Concord Coalition 77% of the time and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform only 5% of the time. I think that someone who is pro-environment, staunchly pro-choice, pro-civil rights, pro-entitlement, pro-gay, pro-labor, pro-health care reform and votes liberal 80-85% of the time can be called a solid Democrat.

So why the resistance? Is it because he talks about values and thus sounds like a Republican? I think that it is pretty foolish that we would reject such a qualified and staunchly progressive candidate because he sounds different from most Democrats. There was a time when Democrats led this country in every meaningful way and it was because people believed we were right. They believed this because we told them that we sought better jobs, better health care, a cleaner environment, a safer world and greater opportunity for all of them not because we wanted their votes or because it would make life "easy" but because we have a moral obligation to do so. Really, values are necessary to make sense of our policies. If we aren't doing the things we want to do because they fit into some greater moral purpose, then why are we doing them? Joe Lieberman is providing a sense of where we are supposed to go and what we are supposed to do and that is valuable.

I think that his hawkishness might make some people uneasy, but Lieberman is a Kennedy Democrat. John Kennedy was a well known anti-communist and military hawk and it almost cost him the nomination. His religion and his identification as a moderate almost handed the nomination to Hubert Humphrey or Lyndon Johnson in 1960. Lieberman faces a similar task but the outcome is sure to be different because the thing he lacks that Kennedy had in great supply is gravitas. Lieberman does not excite and inspire like his ideological forebear did and that's why I don't particularly support him though I'd back him 100% if he somehow wins the nomination. If Lieberman was just slightly more engaging and if I thought he had even a slight chance at the nomination I'd probably be leaning his way rather than towards Edwards for my backup plan. As it stands, I still don't understand why a man that stands for the same things that I do and passionately fights for the core values of our party and makes sens of them in a larger context would be facing so much deep opposition.