Lieberman and the Lockstep idea

Whenever the debate surrounding Senator Joe Lieberman appears, inevitably some conservative will make the accusation that poor Holy Joe has been burned in effigy because he dared to upset the status quo. The way they describe it, Lieberman has shown remarkable courage in the face of a party that does not accept dissent amongst its ranks.

I want to say the accusation is just false on its face, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. In the first place, Lieberman was hardly the only Democrat supporting the war. Looking at Congress’s voting record, vast swaths of Democrats weren’t doing a damn thing to end it, and it was hardly the majority that were out in the spotlight making the biggest fuss.

The problem with Lieberman wasn’t his stance, it was how he used it as a political bludgeon. Rather than sitting with his fellow Democrats and saying “we may not agree on this, but we’re all Democrats and we want this to come to a good conclusion.” Instead, he goes over and starts trashing Democrats, sitting with the party who calls liberals like him (and remember, he is a liberal) godless, morally-bankrupt sinners.

He’s hardly the only Democrat that breaks with party lines on the war or anything else. There’s a whole section of the party, the Blue Dog Democrats, that proudly touts its conservative leanings on issues up and down the line.

Which brings up another point. There’s a big long list of issues which could be considered flashpoints for either party. That includes but isn’t limited to:

• Universal health care
• Gay marriage
• Abortion
• The Iraq War
• Executive power
• Torture
• Gun control
• Taxes
• Religion in government
• Global warming

Pick any one of those issues and ask yourself how often Democrats butt heads on them, or Republicans for that matter. To act like either party is in complete lockstep with one another on that list and everything else would be insane. There are pro-life and pro-choice Democrats and Republicans, who voted for and against Bush’s tax cuts, that support and don’t support gay marriage. There’s a spectrum that goes between your Bernie Sanderses and your Jesse Helmses.

It was how Lieberman took the issue politically that pissed off the party. Especially as he’s the lynchpin to the Senate right now, he’s almost taunting the party by saying “You need me or else you lose control, so what are you gonna do when I piss on your shoes?” Stumping with McCain, speaking at the RNCC, getting on TV and ripping apart his party on the war, he’s gladly played the villain.

It doesn’t help that when he lost the primary, he ran anyway. His victory was a complete acknowledgment that his support comes from the right, and that he ran even though the Democrats voted for another guy acknowledges that he doesn’t give a shit what his own party wants.

But that’s just the attack on party officials, where it almost can make sense. What gets to me most is that for some reason, liberals in general aren’t supposed to take offense at his flagrant spitting in the face of the left. As though wanting politicians from our own party to represent our interests was some egregious offense.

I want my politicians to be pro-choice, for gay marriage, against the Iraq war, strong on national security without being idiotic about it, realize that the War on Drugs is a failure, fair on taxes, supporting national health care and other public programs, and embracing the wall of separation between church and state. Those are my values, and how closely a given politician adheres to them determines how much I like him or her. End of story.

There’s nothing wrong with that either. That’s the point of a representative democracy. We want our leaders to represent our interests. And since not all issues are given equal weight, standing on polar opposite sides on some over others will be a bigger deal. If a given politician isn’t going to push for national health care, I’m not going to mind as much as if he wants to overturn Roe v Wade. Being less than harsh on gun control doesn’t matter as much as getting religion out of the public square.

So when Joe Lieberman not only differs from me on the Iraq War, but is in almost perfect alignment with the rightmost wingnuts on it on everything from wiretapping to torture, that becomes a huge point of contention and is absolutely a breaking point. Ask yourself how many fierce critics of the war the Republicans are going to embrace and give a speaking role to at the RNCC. Let me help you: none. No one’s going to stand on the opposite bank of McCain and trash what’s become the party’s biggest, if not only, flagship position.

Democrats disagree all the time, so that isn’t why they’ve disowned Joe. And us liberals who aren’t members of Congress have every right to toss out politicians that are perfect antonyms to us in the issue most prevalent today. Besides, remember Jim Jeffords? After he was ostracized by Republicans, he defected and split the Senate. Acting as though Lieberman is some aberration exhibits a severely short-term memory.