Lieberman In Step With GOP On How To Run War
by David Lightman
Joe Lieberman stood virtually alone among Democrats Wednesday, his unyielding support for the administration's conduct of the Iraq war drawing warm praise from President Bush but no support from his own party.
(MoveOn's) Matzzie, whose organization claims more than 50,000 Connecticut members, said Wednesday that if his members ask, his group would back a Democratic challenger to Lieberman.
Matzzie was in New Haven last month, and found "the No. 1 question people asked me was, `What are we going to do about Joe Lieberman?'"
In Bush's address on the progress of the war, the president described those who have called for withdrawal timetables - including 38 of the Senate's 44 Democrats - as "sincerely wrong."
Then he cited Lieberman.
"As Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman said recently, setting an artificial timetable would 'discourage our troops because it seems to be heading for the door. It will encourage the terrorists. It will confuse the Iraqi people.'
"Sen. Lieberman is right," the president said at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Not according to Democrats, who lined up at the Capitol and around the country to sharply criticize Bush's approach - and, in some cases, Lieberman's avid support.
"The war in Iraq has all the characteristics of Joe-momentum," said Tom Matzzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org, a liberal, Democratic-leaning activist group, recalling a slogan the senator used unsuccessfully during his 2004 presidential campaign.
"Just like he didn't realize his presidential ambitions were in trouble," Matzzie said, "he doesn't understand the war in Iraq isn't going anywhere."
Democratic Chairman Howard Dean, a 2004 Lieberman rival for the nomination, refused to discuss the senator, but he made it clear he found Bush's remarks lacking.
"The president failed to give an honest assessment of what's really happening on the ground in Iraq," Dean said. "Instead he released 35 pages of rhetoric and gave a speech full of slogans, but no clear plan."
In Connecticut, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd's comments were similar to those of Dean.
"I'm glad that the president has finally admitted to some of the problems over there," the Connecticut Democrat said. "But he continues, regretfully, to dodge, weave and evade all of the most important questions."
Lieberman did not offer a reaction to Bush speech's Wednesday. His spokeswoman, Casey Aden-Wansbury, said he would "let his editorial in [Tuesday's] Wall Street Journal speak for itself." In that op-ed piece, the senator explained that he saw concrete reasons for hope in Iraq during his two-day trip there last week.
Lieberman, who has supported action against Iraq for nearly 16 years, has been highly visible this week touting the country's progress.
Republicans have given him a November to remember.
It began Nov. 2, when Lieberman was among the president's guests at a White House dinner for Prince Charles and Camilla, duchess of Cornwall. Ten days later, the National Journal reported that its "insiders poll" of 89 influential Republicans found 35 percent named Lieberman as the Democratic member of Congress they most admired. Runner-up was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., at 6 percent.
Bush first invoked Lieberman's name after a tumultuous week of bitter debate in Congress. Lieberman was one of five Senate Democrats to oppose a Democratic-authored plan to require Bush to set timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals.
In a meeting with reporters Nov. 20 in Beijing, the president had warm words for Lieberman, saying, "Fine Democrats like Sen. Joe Lieberman share the view that we must prevail in Iraq."
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan pointed out that Lieberman had cited "real progress that is being made on the ground in Iraq."
The coda on these tributes to Lieberman came late Wednesday, after Democrats criticized Bush's speech.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., again brought up Lieberman, saying, "Even Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a Democrat, recently returned from Iraq and said, `Progress is visible and practical."'
Lieberman's isolation within his own party became evident quickly Wednesday. Shortly after the president's address, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told reporters the speech was "more generalities than specifics." Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., charged that "the president's not dealing with a certain kind of reality that's important to the lives of our troops."
In the House, Minority Leader Nancy D. Pelosi, D-Calif., called the speech "a commitment to the status quo - a status quo that is not working," and Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., a war backer in 2002, called the speech too vague.
No elected official would criticize Lieberman; he is still a respected figure within his party, someone who is a reliable vote on most issues of importance to Democrats. But Matzzie, whose organization claims more than 50,000 Connecticut members, said Wednesday that if his members ask, his group would back a Democratic challenger to Lieberman.
Matzzie was in New Haven last month, and found "the No. 1 question people asked me was, `What are we going to do about Joe Lieberman?'"
Top Democratic officials in the state have not criticized the senator publicly, though many concede privately that they are concerned about how the senator's views will muddle the party's message.
Roy Occhiogrosso, a Democratic strategist whose firm is working on the senator's 2006 campaign as well as others, said Lieberman remains "enormously popular."
Occhiogrosso acknowledged that Iraq is a "sensitive issue," but added, "I really do feel like if we don't have room in the party for those who disagree, we're exactly what we say the Republicans are - close-minded."
Diane Farrell, the Democratic candidate challenging Rep. Christopher Shays in the 4th Congressional District, is another client of Occhiogrosso's firm. She issued a statement Wednesday saying Bush's speech "isn't a plan, it's a wish list."
Asked if he would want Farrell to appear with Lieberman during the campaign, Occhiogrosso said, "Sure. They disagree on this, but on 95 percent of other issues, they agree."
Though he seems to be suffering no serious consequences in the Senate, Lieberman does seem to be increasingly out of synch with his own party on the war.
"A consensus on the war is forming in the Democratic center, that it's virtually impossible to set a withdrawal date, but there should be a change in our approach to the war," said Norman Ornstein, political analyst at Washington's American Enterprise Institute.
Many of the war's Democratic backers, such as Dodd, Kerry, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., have adopted that position.
"Joe is not in that center," said Ornstein, "and I don't see anyone else in the party where he is." |
