NY Observer > Joseph Lieberman

Thwarted Over Iraq, Pelosi Makes a Stand on Iran

Steve Kornacki — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:53:58 -0400

It can often to seem to rank-and-file Democrats as if the Republicans are still in charge of Congress: Nearly a year after their party picked up 31 House and six Senate seats, the war in Iraq still rages, with tens of thousands of more troops deployed now than then. This failure to force even a beginning to the end of the war accounts for the painfully poor poll standing of the Democratic-led Congress, with the party faithful even more restless and frustrated than independent voters. read more »

Lieberman Goes Off the Rails

Niall Stanage — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:35:56 -0400

Where did it all go wrong with Joe Lieberman? Not so long ago, the then-Democratic senator seemed to represent the most mature and worldly strand of his party. read more »

Lieberman's Losing Bid for Influence

Steve Kornacki — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:43:28 -0400

Maybe the 50 members of the Senate’s Democratic Caucus should just call the bluff of their 51st vote and tell Joe Lieberman to take a hike. read more »

Altitude Drop For Lieberman the Hawk

Steve Kornacki — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 07:21:35 -0400

If Mr. Lieberman were to flip to the Senate G.O.P. now, he’d probably still be surrounded by colleagues intent on ending the war. read more »

Lieberman’s Iranian War Fantasy

Niall Stanage — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:53:27 -0400

Senator Joseph Lieberman appeared on Face the Nation on Sunday, apparently with the primary purpose of rattling a saber in Iran’s direction. read more »

Chasing the Joe Lieberman Booby Prize

Steve Kornacki — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Of the suggestion that Senator Joseph Lieberman will up and leave the Democratic Party for good, the read more »

Elsewhere: Lieberman, Spitzer

Observer Staff — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:00:00 -0500

Joe Lieberman hints at switching parties over the Iraq War resolution.

Two more officials backing Hillary Clinton have financial ties to her campaign.

The groups fighting Eliot Spitzer's health care spending cuts are hiring.

They also have a new website.

GOP state Senator Serph Maltese said he was offered a job by Spitzer, but refused to take it.

NYS GOP Chairman said Vinny Ignizio's win on Staten Island Tuesday was "important first step for the Republican Party down the road back to victory in New York."

Dan Janison says that Mike Bloomberg's bullpen style of governing has not started a trend.

Aaron Naparstek has all you want to know about speed lumps.

The National Rifle Association will probably endorse a White House candidate after each party's conventions.

Rock Hackshaw congratulates the winner of the City Council race in Brooklyn whose "political knowledge seemed minimal at best."

More than 280 people have commented on the "find the illegal immigrant" game played by NYU College Republicans.

A Polish-name joke in the New Yorker has drawn criticism.

And above is a classic video of Rudy Giuliani circa 1996, courtesy of City Hall gadfly-cum-reporter Rafael Martinez Alequin.

-- Azi Paybarah

Elsewhere: Spitzer, DiNapoli, Suozzi

Observer Staff — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:34:13 -0500

Will Tom DiNapoli join the Spitzer administration?

Click here for salary information.

Crobar, where Hillary Clinton and other people have held fund-raisers in the past, is re-opening.

Chris Dodd may not get much help from fellow CT lawmaker Joe Lieberman.

There may be a deal on judicial selection in New York.

Errol Louis reflects on MLK.

An anonymous commenter broke news on our site that an aide to Councilman Jim Gennaro, Dena Iverson, is leaving to take a job doing press for the new mayor of D.C. (She confirmed it.)

And pictured above are Craig Johnson, Eliot Spitzer, Tom DiNapoli and Tom Suozzi. -- Azi Paybarah

Does Obama's Being Half-Black Make Him More Acceptable?

Observer Staff — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 03:45:49 -0500

Yes, Barack Obama is black, but he's really only half-black—"[my father] was black as pitch, my mother white as milk," he says in his autobiography. I think this may make him more acceptable as a presidential candidate. It's not strictly racism: Americans like to feel that someone is assimilating into mainstream culture before they award him with high office, they want to know that he truly cares about people other than his own tribe. Obama does not seem at all particularistic.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney is Mormon, which the Washington Monthly and New Republic say ought to disqualify him from the White House. "How Mormon are you?" a reporter once asked Romney. Maybe too Mormon, say the opinion journals. Point taken. John Kennedy needed to demonstrate that he was free of the Pope before he could be president. When Mario Cuomo was readying himself for a run, he went on and on about not cleaving to the Vatican on abortion.

And what about Jews? There's a theory that not only the Supreme Court cost Al Gore the 2000 election, so did Joe Lieberman's Jewishness. Gore couldn't win his home state, Tennessee. I'm sure some of this resistance was anti-Semitism; I heard some anti-Jewish comments about Gore's v.p. choice, Lieberman. But some of it was understandable: Lieberman is a nationalistic Jew; and I wonder "How Jewish" he is—that is to say, how he feels about his children marrying non-Jews, how important Israel would be in his foreign-policy considerations (high!). The first Jew in the White House is likely to be someone more assimilated than Lieberman, somebody intermarried, someone who makes a clear distinction between Israel's interests and ours.

MondoWeiss

Observer Staff — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 04:33:43 -0500

In Esau's Tears, a study of antisemitism, UCal/Santa Barbara prof Albert Lindemann quotes Harvard scholar Ruth Wisse as saying that antisemitism functions "independent of its object." That is, it's a malady that has nothing to do with the reality of Jews. But then Lindemann notes that Wisse herself says that the "dynamism" of Jews in the 19th and 20th century has been "unparalleled." Wisse would know; she is a Harvard scholar whose son lately married Joe Lieberman's daughter, and her in-law is now one of 13 Jewish senators.

Thirteen Jewish senators. 13 percent, exactly ten times the actual JEwish population percentage, of 1.3 percent. Jews are an elite, no one can deny it, and the cool thing about America, if you believe in it, as I do, is that America doesn't mind that they are elite. America respects subcultures; it understands that Jewish achievement is a reflection of Jewish culture of learning. At a time when Ruth Wisse and Gabriel Schoenfeld and a host of others are wringing their hands about the new antisemitism, the number of Jews in the country's most exclusive club, the Senate, leaps by 30 percent.