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Connecticut's "Conservative" Senator?
By Tim Siggia
January 06, 2003
Welcome back, loyal readers of Radiofree West Hartford, and I hope the holidays passed well for all.
One endless source of curious information is our local bureau of Pravda, known in Connecticut as The Hartford Courant. During the holidays as I was perusing The Only Act In Town (unless you count the Journal Inquirer, an equally liberal Manchester tabloid), I noticed a Bob Englehart cartoon depicting four views of our junior senator, Joseph I. Lieberman, currently among the front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. No problem, says Englehart, with Lieberman being Jewish, Democratic or conservative. It's just "that voice".
Senator Lieberman's voice I've always been familiar with: he always sounds as if he just got out of bed. But until I read that issue of The Courant, I did not know that Sleepy Joe -- if this is indeed the same Joe Lieberman I've come to know -- is a conservative. But, as Virginia O'Hanlon might have said, I read it in The Courant, so it must be true, right?
So Joe Lieberman is a conservative. Surely Mr. Englehart can't be talking about the same Joe Lieberman who had a 2001 ACU rating of 28, and a lifetime ACU rating of 20. Not the same Joe Lieberman who got a 2000 rating of 75 and a lifetime rating of 76 from the liberal ADA. Not the same Joe Lieberman who voted against John Ashcroft's confirmation as attorney general, voted against the tax cut bill, voted against elimination of the marriage penalty, voted against withholding of federal funding for public schools that bar the Boy Scouts, and voted for the United States to sign onto the United Nations-sponsored International Criminal Courts. Is there another Joe Lieberman that the rest of us don't know about lurking about somewhere, who would support things like tax cuts and the Flag Protection Amendment?
Not too likely. We must remember where we are, after all. Considering the political climate here in Connecticut, there may be a kernel of twisted truth in Englehart's assessment of Lieberman. Only in a place like Connecticut, where George W. Bush is still considered by many to be the "illegimate" president, where the only difference between Democrats and Republicans is what they call themselves, where Jim Jeffords is considered moderate and anybody to the right of Lincoln Chaffee is considered a far-right extremist, where the state motto of "Qui Transtolet Sustinet" is most accurately translated as "Liberalism Trumps All Else", could Joe Lieberman be considered conservative. Which, of course, he is: compared to Patty Murray and Maxine Waters!
But perhaps I'm being a bit hasty in my judgment. There is always the possibility that Bob Englehart knows something about our good senator that the rest of us don't: namely that he's really a closet Dittohead! Could it possibly be that Sleepy Joe's lifetime record of lukewarm liberalism has been merely a pose designed to throw us all off until he gains the Ultimate Prize and shows his true colors? Is it within the realm of possibility that he's been staying up late at night reading RadioFree West Hartford, and has come over to our side? And, if this is really so, might it possibly then be that Chris, Ted and Hillary are preparing to follow his example?
Well, anything's possible, I suppose -- but I wouldn't bet the mortgage on it!
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