General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSanctimonious
" I made the pont that the liberals had stood with Clinton while the DLC people had deserted him and described the miserable (Joe) Lieberman as a 'sanctimonious prick.' Hillary said, 'Well, he is cartainly sanctimonious,' but showed no eagerness to pursue this line of thought." -- Journals 1952 - 2000 ; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.; Penguin, 2007, page 837.
This discussion between Arthur and Hillary took place at at White House event well before Al Gore was the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. Thus, they were not talking about Joe Liberman as a potential choice for vice president. Indeed, they agreed on a word that, dating back to the early 1600s, has never been a compliment.
Al Gore had picked Warren Christopher to conduct his VP search. Arthur suggested two good choices -- George Mitchell and Chris Dodd. But Christopher picked Lieberman, who Gore would telll Schlesinger had been his 4th on the list. Arthur expressed his outrage:
"Lieberman is not only sanctimonious but a hypocrite -- the 'conscience of the Senate' got there by defeating a fine liberal Lowell Weicker in one of the nastiest campaigns in recent history. Lieberman is also president of the Democratic Leadership Conference, the Republican wing of the Democratic party ...." (page 847)
"Joe Lieberman, though he refrained in his acceptance speech from attributing his nomination to the personal intervention of the Almighty, cannot keep his wretched sanctimony out of the campaign. On 27 August he gave a speech in Detroit declaring that belief in God is the basis of morality and the American republic.One wonders why the Founding Fathers did not bother to mention God in the Constitution. 'As a people,' Holy Joe opined, 'we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God's pirpose.' Lincoln had it better in his second inaugural, 'The Almighty has his own purposes.' " (page 850)
Schlesinger details phone calls, meetings, and social events where party members discussed their unwillingness to vote for the Gore/ Lieberman ticket due to Joe's being the potential vice president. He names names, something that dispels the myth that it is the left wing of the party that refuses to vote for our nominees. Some say they will vote for Ralph Nader. Arthur, who describes George W. Bush as "a frightened ventriloquist's dummy," suggests that the republican ticket couldn't do much harm in four years in office.
Perhaps the most savage comment on how his friends viewed Lieberman came in a discussion with Philip Roth, who said, "I am considering issuing a statement: 'Mr. Roth is not available forinterviews. He has gone to the hospital to have his foreskin sewed back on'." (page 847)
All of this was from when Holy Joe was still a Democrat, if in name only. In my opinion, he played as significant a role in the election's outcome as the corrupt Supreme Court. I think the world would be very different if Al Gore had been president. I do not think that 9/11 would have happened, for example ...... not because I subscribed to the paranoid LIHOP nonsense that was common back when. Rather, he would have paid attention to all of the warning signs.
I do not rejoice at the death of any human being. That's not to say I wouldn't be pleased to learn of the death of, say, Putin. Or his top helpers, for I won't know until that happens. But it is to say that even in his biggest role as a Democrat, Joe Lieberman was terrible. And he became contaminated by the bitterness that saturated his being after the Democratic Party rejected him.
rust in pieces.
TheProle
(2,178 posts)H2O Man
(73,552 posts)some people supported his efforts to promote McCain in 2008. And his effort to sink President Biden's chances this year. One never knows where they might encounter such a person.
Saoirse9
(3,676 posts)People nearly always speak well of the dead. Even Lieberman. Doesn't mean you have to believe it.
That actually sounds like a potential Roth novel , The Foreskin Return
✌🏻
Very good! (And soon to be a major motion picture.)
Xavier Breath
(3,631 posts)BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)He also said America gets the President it deserves. I mostly agree, but not in the case of the 2000 election and Al Gore, whose loss always seemed to sit just fine with Joe Lieberman.
Arthur is greatly missed.
H2O Man
(73,552 posts)I've collected every book of his that I've ever found. Loved his writings for many decades.
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)Blew my mind. In a good way.
Ill say this, he understood power in a way that seems to have been lost on our party. And however one feels about the Kennedys, they understood it too.
H2O Man
(73,552 posts)His "A Thousand Days" (about JFK) is also a great read. Robert was my favorite politician, followed closely by his brother John. I have a high opinion pf Tedd, too.
Saoirse9
(3,676 posts)Lieberman was in Irish parlance a shitehawk. Always selling shovels of shite.
Rest in hell you useless shitehawk.
That's all I have to say about that.
H2O Man
(73,552 posts)to read between the lines here ....... I sense you do not mourn his loss?
Saoirse9
(3,676 posts)he was as thick as manure and half as useful.
The sea wouldn't give him a wave, and the tide wouldn't take him out.
For me, all I can say is he was as sharp as marble.
I honestly haven't thought of him in more that 20 years.
And I won't think of him at all in the next 20.
H2O Man
(73,552 posts)the greatest necroconservative voice advocating for the Bush-Cheney war in Iraq. Saved us from yellow cake and mushroom clouds and other threats that did not exist.
Saoirse9
(3,676 posts)yellow cake uranium in Iraq never existed the most.
It is a shame that those who knowingly lied us into that war were never prosecuted. Thousands killed or wounded.
malaise
(269,008 posts)Rec
H2O Man
(73,552 posts)Schlesinger was my kind of Democrat.
Easterncedar
(2,298 posts)Perfect. And what a different timeline we would be in if he hadnt become president. One of the weakest candidates ever fielded. And yet
And yes, he and Cheney and the rest should have been prosecuted as war criminals.