You bet! Actually, the enthronement of the Lieberman-gore ticket would gravely jeopardize the fairness of the US in hosting the Middle East peace process. Keep in mind that, despite a US administration replete with top-ranking Jewish-Americans, the White House so far was viewed as a rather "fair broker" by the Palestinians (recall Clinton and wife visiting Jericho and chumming up with Palestinian kids...) However, the problem with Lieberman is not as much about his presumable empathy with his fellow Israelis as about his emotional crippling towards the Palestinians' fate.... At this level of geopolitics, it doesn't help to have a US Vice President who is both judge and judged --even in a private sense.
Furthermore, the Lieberman-gore ticket doesn't bode well for the US foreign agenda on a broader scope --here's my point:
Message 14298263
Somehow, the nomination of a Jewish-American to the Vice-Presidentship precludes any further non-WASP appointment. I mean Lieberman is somewhat the token-minority-guy of the Gore Administration so who needs an African-American as, say, US State Secretary? Lieberman alone will be the Gore Administration's pledge of "equal opportunity"....
But the Lieberman pick means much more yet: it means a tightening of the priviledged relationship between Europe and the US --to the detriment of other, less profitable partnerships (in Africa, the Arab world, and even Asia).
Usually, right-wing lobbies and think-tanks of all sorts are eager to blindly support the Republican ticket --if only to cash in on a wholesale tax-cut-- however, in this election, things seem to turn out the other way around. Just apply the same rationale to the Bush/Cheney ticket: the Republican Veep post is already filled with a conservative churchgoer so that a balanced compassionate conservatism might call for some minority token somewhere else --and that's where the two bugbears come in, namely Condie Rice and Gen. Colin Powell!
The appointment of an African-American guy to the State Dept top-job would cool an already overstrained transatlantic relationship --that is, a relationship worth $250 billion annually (in trade).
I guess that's why TimeWarner's spin-doctors and other US media pundits have tarted up the miscast W.Bush vs Gore campaign into the Lieberman vs W. Bush blockbuster....
Gus. |
