...Where The Good Lord Split You

Malaria. Mumps. Mauling By A Bear. All Things We Will Miss More Than You.

When the “end” came for Senator Joe Lieberman (I-“only-give-a-fuck-about-me”—CT), it was hoped for by many here on the left that there would be more to it than what we got a week or so ago. More smoke. More fire. A bruising primary battle that he would again lose and again spit on the process with another third party run that would end this time with an exhausting loss and a bicuspid-loosening, lachrymose speech to end all bicuspid-loosening, lachrymose speeches.

Instead, we got the unexpected, punk-assed bow-out before the predicted knock-out…and a pretty damned lachrymose speech anyways.

We will take it.

You see, when you get a bow out like that, it means that said candidate's internal polling in-state is not merely on the negative end of things. It means that it is abysmal to the point where it can not be centrifugally spun to even neutral.

This final Senatorial term and his craven shenanigans during it soiled his reputation in Connecticut to the point where the number of those who'd backed him for the last twenty years, “just 'cuz”, was swamped by the number of those who'd begun to find themselves pissed off by him as far back as the 2000 Presidential election when he patty-caked with his direct opponent Dick Cheney(!), and the steadily increasing number of middle-grounders who found his post-September 11th hawk-fuck behavior growing more reprehensible by the month.

It would have been schadenfreudilly-icious fun to see it end for him all Santorum-like on a balloon and confetti-free stage with a small band of broken-hearted nutmegger supporters and a doddering, stiff-lipped John McCain by his side as the TV talking heads all went on about the sadness of it all / warrior carried out on his shield / “he was his own man” yada-yada they reflexively spew out of their mouths. “Just 'cuz”.

But instead, with his typical courage…Joe ran away rather than get run out. We'll never know just how awful the internals actually were, but let's just say that the numbers were not based on some random “it just happened”, shrug your shoulders “Wha?” anomaly. In politics, things happen for a reason. And Joe Lieberman started seeding the ground early for his abandonment by the Connecticut electorate.

In 1998, he let it be known to the generation of Democratic politicos that came after him and ascended to power without his king-making-thank-you-very-much! that he would not be ignored, when he came out as the one Dem to most obviously hop a cheap-ass hobo-ride on the right wing's “Get Bill Clinton Express” during the impeachment hearings. This was one of the first times I remember hearing about Lieberman's oh-so-convenient “moral” (pronounced by Joe in that annoying as hell, cloying “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll” intonation) nature. It would sadly, not be the fucking last.

Two years later in 2000, having ridden the wave of fame from his standing alone against Bill Clinton's penis or something like that, we found Joe again on the national stage, having been chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate by then veep Al Gore in a stupidly misguided attempt to curry favor with the mewling, chicken-necked scolds of the voter base. Lieberman not only brought us all the new word for the opposite of voter excitement (“Joe-mentum”), but also let everyone know who his friends truly were when he he rhetorically gelded himself and handed over on the world's smallest silver platter said separated goods to his opponent, the famously venomous Dick Cheney during their lone Vice Presidential debate that season. His relationship with Cheney that night was like that of a sozzled patrician reveler at a dinner party in Georgetown who realizes upon grabbing the last canapé off the hors d'œuvres tray that a fellow “Villager” has grabbed the other end of it—where they laughingly break the fucking thing in half, each wolf it down and then cut some cushy deal two weeks later as they hack the 18th hole at Swan Point to bits because “Hey, guys like us…we have to get along, right?”.

Wrong.

Throw in his droopy-jowled capitulation to Bush, Cheney and the Brooks Brothers Rioters during the later 2000 recount fight, totally undermining the top-of-the-ticket push to count every vote and his passive / aggressive pattern became clear to all. Albeit a bit too clear for ol' Joe, though…

As the year 2004 bought him back into the limelight. That is, if you consider “the limelight” the bare periphery of the goddamned political stage where you could just make out his silhouette where the haze of the spotlight ends and stagehand-hiding darkness begins. He was ten things beyond an afterthought in the 2004 Democratic Presidential primaries and that universal opinion evidently bent what was left of the needle of his wildly spinning internal moral compass for fucking good. Sure, it's doubtful that his almost metronomic fellating of George Bush's divisive Iraq War in the face of its bullshitteousness (which as said bullshitteousness increased, so oddly did his support for it) didn't have a thing to do with Dems running from him on the national stage like he had the disease-of-the-day SARS shooting out of his pores at them, huh?. He took offense that Dems took offense over his playing doormat to the GOP's shit-covered shoes whenever possible and never looked back after that should-have-been-ruinous political season. Should-have-been-ruinous. Alas.

Shoot ahead to 2006 when even Nutmeg State Dems found him distastefully bitter and chose another Democrat, Ned Lamont to be their standard bearer for the party. Joe went to the mattresses at this point, invoking his alter ego Droopy Dog's mantra “You know what? That makes me mad.” and effectively laid waste to what was left of his Democratic bona fides with his third party run for the slot. It was going to be a win / win for him. If he won, he'd thumb his nose at the party he'd screwed into despising him, and even if he lost he'd split the vote so the “ungrateful” Dems couldn't possibly win, thus handing the seat over to his canapé-sharing palsie-walsies in the G.O.P. Scenario Number One came to pass, and from that point forward, he would be led only by his aforementioned (cue the heroic-but-dated Frank Capra movie music) “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll nature”.

Which meant nad-kicking anyone and any policy that he simply disliked because it originated from or benefited the party he'd been abandoning since his supposedly canny shanking of Bill Clinton in '98. Hell, as far back as his first term really, since he giddily backed George Bush the Senior's initial Gulf War in 1991. People forget about that little shot across the bow.

It was all downhill and ugly on big, square wheels after that for ol' Joey “Shanks”. From his unctuous, drama-queeny dithering on who to caucus with in the Senate and playing the Dems for chumps (not that hard of a thing, really) by invoking his magical, key Senate vote in return for attendance at key leadership meetings, only to run back to Mitch McConnell and crew with the “Ooh, Ooh! Here's what they're gonna do!” dirt, to his dude-who-will-not-leave-the-party-even-though-the-host's-gotta-go-to-work-the-next-day level of continued support for the war in Iraq after everyone else saw it for the debacle it was, to his bilious backing of Connecticut's Catholic-run Hospitals refusing to administer the morning after pill on the religious whims of their owners to rape victims (Yes…rape…VICTIMS!), which prompted his infamous “It's only a short ride to another hospital” callous-speak, his descent was like un-unwatchable blurry footage of a wild car crash from some cheesy “You Gotta See This!” late night reality video show. He'd campaign with his comrade-in-hypocrisy John McCain during the latter's 2008 stumble for President and then…then give a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2008 that showed us all the bold difference between “Country Crazy” (Zell Miller) and “DINO Diabolical” (Lieberman himself). After President Obama's election and the Dems increasing their Senate numbers to where Lieberman's passive-aggresive pussy-footing meant even less, he was reduced to the occasional “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll” pontification on whatever vote it was that would move him to be that ineffectual old man yelling at clouds in the sky.

Until now. Those bad internal polls and a little bird's tale of less-than-good responses from potential donors on an initial reach-out for a 2012 run were enough to squelch his hopes of torturing us with six more years of deeply felt moaning from that tom turkey neck of his.

Of course, just 48 hours ago, he let loose a spew of pride-bandaging nonsense about how he 'could have won if he chose to run' as political reporters' angle on him was shifting to how his once-considerable constituency had evaporated. His statement only went to prove the point that a self-aggrandizing, toothless leopard never really can change its spots. But just before all that and his retirement announcement, he desperately tried to pull one of the oldest and most transparent tricks in ye olde book of con-artistry. And that was his flexing what little power he had left in getting “Don't Ask—Don't Tell” repealed when he did and the way he did.

Take yourself back to high school, junior going into senior year—pretty much the stretch run of things and you'll probably remember this scenario either happening to you or saw it happen to any number of people: Kids who spent the last few chapters of their time there fucking off everything worth a damn—ditching every class they had, smoking in the stairwells, and acting like utterly self-centered tools to anyone who dared call them on these transgressions while simultaneously compounding the school's delinquency problem . All of a sudden as the end nears, they get it in their heads to come back to class, make up a few homework assignments and maybe slap together a project they should have been working on throughout and then expect that final, furtive burst of psuedo-conscientious activity to be the thing their entire student career is to be graded upon. “Pay no attention to my long legacy of assholery…how's about this fine poster board triptych and still-drying papier-mâché presentation on the life-cycle of the multitude-feeding, mother-fucking corn plant, huh?”

“I mean…I get a science medal for this, right?”

No.You. Do. Not.

Joe Lieberman was that dorkwad student for the entire second half of his Senate career, siding with the delinquents and thugs and being a general miscreant and pain-in-the-ass to everyone who expected better of him and let him know that they did. He comes to the obvious end of things and then, only then—did he suddenly figure it was finally okay to do a “gasp!” decent thing for some Americans who really needed it in the last session of Congress where he could really use some of that alleged capital he'd sat his wrinkled ass on for years. He is that asshole kid you will remember forever for overflowing all the toilets during lunch—when you were on one of them. He is the dude who thought it would be fun to mix the science class' magnesium flakes into the pottery class clay, thus blowing up the kiln and contaminating the gym with fumes for three months. During the winter. That dude…who wants you to instead remember for him for that excellent goddamned corn plant display he roughed off in the last three weeks of school. DADT repeal was great. But hey, it was the only decent thing to do…and special points are not awarded for doing what you are supposed to do, especially when in retrospect it is one of the only things you were supposed to do that you actually went out and did.

In a prizefight, you don't win 'cause you put together a pretty flurry in the last thirty seconds of each round after shambling about and tanking the first two minutes and thirty seconds of those rounds, because it never really fools the judges.

Only dive-taking bums do that. And Joe Lieberman…is a dive-taking bum.

I will not miss him, and neither will you. His bogus “moooooaaaaaawww-raaawwwwllll” nature will be an afterthought after countless afterthoughts before it. That passive-aggressive backstabbiness and craven ransom holding of votes that should have been simple-human-decency-based will not be thought of as ironic or crafty politicking, but rather as what they were—underhanded and self-serving. His migraine-inducing plays for integrity when confronted with his misdeeds, trotting out the sad, soggy old card of neo-cons everywhere—“I marched with Dr. King”—will absolutely not be missed. Real warriors of that time never have to bring that shit up out of context. Only post-mid-life-crisis ideological flip-floppers looking to cover their naked asses from rightful criticism work that mawkish angle out of the blue.

So, Joe…it ends…as bad things like root canals, IRS audits and weekend-long diarrheic bouts with Indian food poisoning always do. With the sufferer pained and worse for wear, but happier than a cat in a “Deadliest Catch” fish hold that the bad times are at long last over. Toodle-oooo, Joey, and I hope your future career at Fox is so quickly negotiated that when the Senate door swings shut to hit you where the Good Lord split you that it can only strike the vapor of whatever final legislative fart on the way out I know you'll decide to grace that august chamber with.

Here's a song to scoot out to. And please enjoy Oran's spoken word love poem at the 2:23 mark.

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Joe Must Go

CALL YOUR SENATORS - JOE MUST GO

It's fine if he stays in the caucus with the Democrats. But he must be stripped of his seniority and his Chairmanship of Homeland Security. If for no other reason, because of rank incompetence.

Call your Senator and the Democratic Leadership. Actions have consequences.

Tell Joe Buh-Bye.

That's Change We Can Believe In.

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Joe Liberman Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent

The Pickler with a slip of the .. err.. tongue...

Republican rival John McCain is seriously considering naming his running mate between the end of the Democratic convention Aug. 28 and the Sept. 1 start of the GOP convention ..[snip]..

His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent. --AP

Heh, indeed, etc.

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The “Bitter” End II: This Time It's Personal

“Cause The Brother Is Madder Than Mad At The Fact That's Corrupt Like A Senator”

And our long national discussion on bitterness continues...

ANNOUNCER VOICE OVER: Last week on “Bitterness” we heard:

“And bitterness is an ugly thing indeed. It twists you. It curdles your soul and hardens your heart. It deadens the eyes and rots your relationships. It will drive you to say and do things that a clear-minded person wouldn't dare. Senator Obama's statement about what bitterness brings echoes like a brick ricocheting down an elevator shaft. People will cling to polarizing things as a way to express their frustrations.”

In the Fall of 2006, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut—(and the “I” stands not for “independent” but rather, “In It For My Got-damned Self”) you will ruefully recall, found himself in the race of his life for the Nutmeg State Senate seat against the “Netroots”-backed newcomer Ned Lamont. We all remember “Holy Joe's” whiny, bleating pleas to Dems in the state and beyond to put aside their huge objections to his Lon Chaney-esque transformation (or bandages-removed revealing...) into a Yankee-accented “Zell-wolf”, thanks his open embrace of the WORST elements of President Bush's most damaging, and anti-progresive policy endeavors.

It was as if he was asking for “a humble”, or a pass basically, on his one-time drift—now a headlong rush—into Lower Wingnuttia. 'Allow me this thing...this one thing as I ride off on my saggy-backed, cross-eyed mule into the political sunset' was pretty much his sad call to political comrades and Connecticut's voters. And when those Nutmegger voters rejected his selfish request in the Democratic primary, along with the nascent and table-upsetting left blogosphere, a slow curdling that had been happening inside Lieberman went into hyperspeed. He would abandon the Dermocratic party he claimed to be a member of (but for years had been sneakily jail-shanking whenever he got the chance) in a fit of rejection-fueled pique, and selfishly, willfully, and spitefully hamstring the party's thread-thin Senate majority with a so-called “Independent” general election run post-his Dem primary defeat.

Wa all know to our eternal regret how it turned out. With the aid of the GOP and more than a few DLC knuckle-dragger buddies in the Senate, he would win re-election, kind of caucus with the Dems (to hold onto some power as part of a slim majority), but because of his newfound 'freelancing fossil' status, have carte blanché to pal around with his choice of whatever wingnut he wanted and nad-kick the Dems publicly while voting out of caucus on specifically anti-GOP pieces of legislation.

What has happened since then is a textbook lesson on the “Altered States” dysmorphia that bitterness can wreak on a public servant. Lieberman is supremely aware that this is his last go-round as a Senator. His craven power-playing from '06 notwithstanding, his constituents are now experienceing “New Coke” levels of vocal buyer's remorse. Except there's no “old” formula for him to go back to as he's trashed it utterly—and in that old formula, he was no liberal firebrand to begin with. The political ground has shifted under his orthopedic-shoe clad feet. His victory in '06 was a last burp of major-state, old-school DLC acceptance before the projectile voiding of all of that thanks to the influence of internet activism and the result of nausea from too many poilitcos who should have known better enabling the 7 1/2 years of the failed Bush presidency. He's been disninvited from varfious key caucus strategy sessions as it's pretty much known that he will go back to his GOP pals and drop Sacajawea dollars—fuck dimes—on the discussions. And as he's no longer considered a power-broker on the party's PR / talking head / prestige front lines, this spoiled, spiteful, sanctimonious, hypocritical and mean-spirited attention whore has opted to go out in a blaze of glory—standing alongside the Republican standard-bearer as a pathetic human crutch, should he stumble. (And oh how he has.)

He is effectively, the guy at work who's been there forever, not really doing very much of note, who has gotten wind that he...is...done. There is no department to move him to as the company is changing drastically. His ineffectiveness and long-time non-team playerism has been noted and figured into the decision.

So what does this embittered, political, human out-take from “Office Space” do?

He “trashes” the place. He does the political equivalent of maliciously wiping his computer of necessary company files, Then tries to do the same to his co-horts' 'puters. He willfully inserts a nasty virus to infect everyone's terminals. Squirts Krazy Glue™ in the printers, sets fire to the copy paper room, and makes toxic pots of coffee with ammonia instead of water. He clogs the toilets after-hours, unplugs the refrigrator and takes a dump in the conference room and hides the evidence so it'll reek for hours, if not days—and no one can find it.

That's what he's doing as he “works out the string” when he stands with McCain and disses his one-time party. And the worst thing he does is rent himself out as an attack chihuahua against the Democratic party's presidential candidates, as he did this past week when he went into his bag of smeary tricks with his mealy-mouthed concern-trolling about ties between Hamas and the presumptive nominee Barack Obama. Via Talking Points Memo:

“It was only a matter of time, really. If you ever doubted that Joe Lieberman would be using what's left of his "Independent Democrat" credentials to legitimize the GOP's bogus "Hamas endorsed Obama" attack, here he is on CNN doing just that...

----------------------------------------------------------

When Wolf Blitzer pointed out that Obama also labels Hamas a terrorist organization, making his position the same as McCain's, Lieberman said, "that's true," adding that Obama "clearly doesn't support any of the values and goals of Hamas."

Then, with depressing predictability, came the inevitable caveat:”

“But the fact that the spokesperson for Hamas would say they would welcome the election of Senator Obama really does raise the question, "Why?"

And it suggests the difference between these two candidates.”

That was exceptionally shady shit from the wrinkled nad-faced little hit man. In that droning, faux-gravitas tone of his, he farted out the ugly spectre of “Oh nooooooes! Beware the Black dude with the funny name! He iz down with the terra-iztz I will remind you about once every seventeen seconds!” He's taking up that mantle to allow his fellow bed-wetting fear-o-con™ plausible deniability to say, “Hey, my friend! I didn't say that. Joe Lieberman, member of the Dems Senate Caucus did. So it must really mean something! Now excuse me as I go yell at clouds.” But even the craven little Lieber-bot knows he has as much of a real, listening constituency as a field mouse in a bobcat's den.

No. I take that back. He does have a constituency. A small number of fear-addled, single-issue, small “r” moder-racists™, and of course, the rope-belted, foot-slapping mob who cheer him on one minute and then would dance like they were on “Soul Train” the second Lieberman and everyone like him God forbid were to disappear from the face of the earth, as that would herald a prophesied paradise where a glowing Jim Caviezel hands out candy apples and fat-ass tax cuts. Praise the Lord and pass the xenophobia!

This is all he has left.

Say what you will about Senator Clinton's noxious doings of late as a result of bitterness (and boy, there have been some doozies), at the very least, and being fair—her creepy deeds can at least be traced to some core sense of abandonment and a feeling (justified or not) of having been “wronged”. People once steadfast in her corner walking away. Whether just to try something different, or out of upset with intransigence on her part over important issues, I can empathize with her having angry feelings about her change in status. Lieberman on the other hand abandoned his party, and is angry that they will not continue to support him—as if he's accumulated a cache of “asshole points” over the years that would allow him in his puke-green, pre-storm sunset years to be as big of a retrograde jerk as he pleases and not see any repercussions for it.

Senator Clinton is the paramour now spurned, who after years of companionship is angry that things seem to be over. And if in the end she can't get what she feels she deserve for her service, she'll do what she can to get what she can, even if the getting is a bit unseemly. Lieberman is the flighty, annoying not-so-significant other who walked away on his own accord, but still wants an allowance. And access to the house. And car. And wants to fuck everyone you hate, but wants you to cuddle and tell him how much you love him. And when you don't—he'll try to screw things up for you at work, will put out rumors about you and sneak by at night to key your car. Just a nasty piece of work.

His bitterness (“This Time...It's Personal”) is the sequel that is so much worse than the original. It has absolutely twisted him into a grotesque caricature of what he was—which quite honestly wasn't all that great to begin with, and I fairly thirst—and know I'm not alone—for an increased Senate majority that would enable him to lose his chairmanships, cushy committee seats, his sprawling office that goes with all of that, and be relegated to legislative “armpit” status. I want him in the fucking basement of the Russell Senate Office building. Next to the boiler and a supply closet of foul smelling, toxic solvents. Not even an office. A cube. In fact, a crappy, bile-green half-cube to be shared with whoever maintains the building's sewer traps and that person's work equipment.

And spare us please, the droning “But I marched with Dr.Martin Luther King” drivel. Again, a symbolic “good deed” in the past does NOT accumulate one an allotment of down-the-road “asshole points” to be used for those moments when you want to throw ostensible comrades-in-arms (however weakly you've locked arms in the past) under the Goddamned bulldozer. The hell with your progressive “moment”. I prefer to let a lifetime of deeds stand as the measuring stick. And Lieberman has spent the last ten years or so committing a slew of anti-progressive acts and jail-shanking people he should have been supporting, or at least been fair with. (Remember, he became a Senator via a vicious, right wing-financed campaign against then sitting Senator Lowell Weicker) Chuck Heston also marched with Dr. King, but it is his final years incarnation, of ugly, retrograde opinioneering and championing that many see him in the harsh light of. Lieberman's bitterness over the Dems not being cool with his hard rightward swing and his naked perfidy in taking down his “fellow” Dems shows through in his spiteful, nyah-nyah-ing daily acts of subterfuge and outright hostility.

There is bitterness you may grudgingly forgive, and there is bitterness you fight a son-of-a-bitch over. Lieberman's is the latter. And I won't be satisfied until he is politically headwhipped so much that when three fingers are held before him and he's asked “How many?”, he says “Mallomars”. You want to call it a purge? A litmus test? Fine. Call it that. I say this—A “friend” who keeps kicking you in the nuts, not softly and for play, but to cause pain and help out an enemy—is not your fucking friend. And that person should be dealt with accordingly. Screw his pious mewlings about “feelings”, and “history”.

That person needs to be punished. End of story.

And for all this talk of “Dr. King, who I marched with...” I think that a lout like “Short Ride” Joe would probably make even the non-violent MLK have the occasional fantasy of cracking him across his lying, evil-enabling lips. He wouldn't actually do it. But bad people sometimes make you think bad things about them.

Me? I have no such scruples. And a rap in the grille would be getting off easy from me. Besides...why sully your hands when a well-and-swiftly placed Size 12 will do?

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Joe Leiberman Checks John McCain's Bearings

If you know what I mean, and I think you do.

This morning I personally checked John McCain's bearings, he has not lost any of them, they're all really in great shape -- Senator Joe Lieberman

I don't know which was creepier, Joe's moment de' uncomfortable, or having Andrea Mitchell, Alan Greenspan's wife use the clip. The villagers are really weird people.

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