"The gifts that God has given to Barack Obama are as enormous as his future is unlimited. As his mentor, as his colleague, as his friend, I look forward to helping him reach to the stars and realize not just the dreams he has for himself, but the dreams we all have for him and our blessed country."
What a difference two years make.
In March 2006, Joe Lieberman, then a Democratic senator from the state of Connecticut, mellifluously extolled the virtues of his friend Barack Obama at the annual Jefferson-Jackson-Bailey dinner. But in April of this year when asked on a conservative talk radio show if Obama is a Marxist, Lieberman responded that it was a "good question."
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier in the year, Lieberman lamented that the Democratic Party has strayed from the "principled, internationalist, strong and successful" foreign policy of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Truman. "It was a party," he said, "that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or … we would fall divided."
He chose to ignore, of course, Roosevelt's alliance with Stalin and Kennedy's missile deal with Krushchev, as well as the fact that one of Kennedy's strongest international movements was an ill-fated skirmish at the Bay of Pigs.
Perhaps more troubling than Lieberman's faulty grasp of American history is his lack of understanding of his own background.
In fact, contrary to his current rapacious ranting that the Democratic Party needs to grow up and get a spine, Sen. Lieberman began his career as a peace activist working for the liberal primary campaign of Democrat Joe Duffey in 1970 and continued as a dovish state senator firmly opposed to the war in Vietnam. He marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in August of 1963 and went to Mississippi afterwards to work to promote civil rights. He was Al Gore's running mate in 2000 and supported John Kerry — then fresh off his National Journal rating as the Most Liberal Senator of the year — in 2004. His Democratic Party is the party of McGovern, of Humphrey, of Mondale and Dukakis — all unabashed liberals.
And yet, Sen. Lieberman stood up at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul to endorse a presidential candidate he disagrees with on most issues and a vice presidential candidate he opposes on almost everything. The only point of agreement seems to be Iraq.
In his July 2006 primary debate with anti-war Ned Lamont, Lieberman called his challenger a single issue candidate. "This campaign is about the future," he said. "I'm not just about one issue"
What a difference two years make.
