The Courage Of His Convictions

He is engaged in a fight for his very political life. He is under relentless attacks from netroots activists who don't even live in his state. He is facing a challenger waiting to pounce on anything he does or says. He is seemingly abandoned by the party he has steadfastly supported. Yet Joe Lieberman has the courage to break with his party and vote against the two amendments offered by the Democrats yesterday. Standing on principle for the good of his country regardless of the cost it entails to him personally.

WASHINGTON — A somber Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman stood alone on the Democratic side of the Senate Wednesday and broke with his colleagues on the Iraq war, announcing he would oppose today two Democratic-authored blueprints for pulling American troops out of Iraq.

Lieberman, the first and so far only Democrat to declare plans to vote against both measures, spoke near the end of a tense day of partisan debate over Iraq policy.

Setting a deadline for redeployment or withdrawal, he said, could have dire consequences.

"I fear that it would also send another message to our terrorist enemies and to the sectarian militias in Iraq," Lieberman argued, "that America is not prepared to see this fight through until the Iraqis themselves can take over."

The senator is facing a tough political fight against Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, whose anti-war position has energized his insurgent primary campaign. Anyone looking for symbolism dramatizing Lieberman's plight could find it all around him as he spoke.

Lieberman was introduced not by a member of his own party, but by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner, R-Va., the Bush administration's chief Senate spokesman on military matters. When Lieberman was done, Warner got up and praised the Democrat.

Lieberman could have done what John "Cool Hat Luke" Kerry did. Shed his spine like a snake sheds his skin, announced he regretted voting for the war and Ned Lamont would have been shut out at the convention. Lieberman could have put the Kos-backed candidate record at 0 for 21 in a heartbeat.

Instead he is man enough to stand by his convictions.

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1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Differences — Saturday, 24 June , 2006 @ 3:35 pm