Lieberman implies that Obama is... A MARXIST! Socialism is OK for Israeli settlements, not for American health care or federal oversight of pensions

Lieberman: It’s ‘a good question’ to ask if Obama is ‘a Marxist.’

Lieberman implies that Obama is... A MARXIST! Socialism is with OK for Lieberman re the government SUBSIDIZATION of Israeli settlements - both in terms of direct Israeli government subsidies, and religious tax-deductions here for American taxpayers, but in typical right-wing fashion, Mr. Lieberman demeans and sneers at the notions of affordable health care for Americans, affordable, state subsidized higher education, or government investments in disease control, transportation, and dozens of other issues that under grid the American way of life as we have come to know it over the past 5 decades.

For more on how the despicable Mr. Lieberman and his Wall St. Insurance, big-finance, banking, and credit cronies, lobbyists, and donors WANT to SOCIALIZE the risk of their shaky financial schemes (derivatives, LBOs, hostile takeovers, "economic hit men" extortionate loans that are guaranteed to fail, etc.)
For more on "socialism for the rich" click here on Kevin Phillip's "Why Wall Street Socialism [for the rich] Will Fail"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-phillips/why-wall-street-socialism_b_96772.html#comments

For THE TEXT-BOOK EXAMPLE of Neo-Con DEMAGOGUERY, watch Lieberman crony-in-crime BILL KRISTOL, the co-chairman of the PNAC "bomb Iraq now!" orgy of neo-con war lust -
(Kristol's "Project for a New American Century" which called for bombing, invading, and occupying Iraq... back in June 1997)
http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
- stating about children denied access to health care by Republicans blocking an expansion of CHIPS, Children's Health Insurance Program, "WHENEVER I HEAR OF A HEARTLESS ASSAULT ON OUR CHILDREN, I TEND TO THINK IT IS A GOOD IDEA."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqObdWSv5lg
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Lieberman: It’s ‘a good question’ to ask if Obama is ‘a Marxist.’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/14/lieberman-its-a-good-question-to-ask-if-obama-is-a-marxist/

In his New York Times column today, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol claimed that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) now-infamous “bitter” remarks sound like Karl Marx’s “famous statement about religion.” On the Brian and the Judge radio show today, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano asked Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) if Obama is “a Marxist as Bill Kristol says might be the case?”

“I must say that’s a good question,” replied Lieberman, before stepping back to say that he would “hesitate to say he’s a Marxist”:

NAPOLITANO: Hey Sen. Lieberman, you know Barack Obama, is he a Marxist as Bill Kristol says might be the case in today’s New York Times? Is he an elitist like your colleague Hillary Clinton says he is?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you know, I must say that’s a good question. I know him now for a little more than three years since he came into the Senate and he’s obviously very smart and he’s a good guy. I will tell ya that during this campaign, I’ve learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. And I wouldn’t…I’d hesitate to say he’s a Marxist, but he’s got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America.

Listen here:

Lieberman's TREACHERY caught on Video: Campaigning 2006 as a Democrat.. for a DEMOCRATIC president...

...that was then, this is now: Lieberman reveals his pro-war, neo-imperialst Republican stripes. HE WAS LYING BACK THEN, and he is LYING NOW.

Purge-gate: Brad Schlozman PURGED minority women from DOJ Civil Rights positions..

What being an AIPAC neo-con thug is REALLY all about - HELPING the Radical Right PURGE non-Rethuglican Americans from government offices and voter rolls.

Joe Lieberman, Brad Schlozman, and AIPAC - treachery and selling out American rights, freedoms, and constitutional democracy is what they are all about.


==================================================

Political Hiring in Justice Division Probed

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002543_pf.html


Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago -- over the objections of their immediate supervisors -- by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to "make room for some good Americans" in that high-impact office, according to four lawyers who said they heard the account from Dugan.

In another politically tinged conversation recounted by former colleagues, Schlozman asked a supervisor if a career lawyer who had voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime political rival of President Bush, could still be trusted.

Schlozman has acknowledged in sworn congressional testimony that he had boasted of hiring Republicans and conservatives, but he denied taking improper actions against the division's career officials. That account was challenged by six officials in the division who said in interviews that they either overhead him making brazen political remarks about career employees or witnessed him making personnel decisions with apparent political motivation.

Schlozman's efforts to hire political conservatives for career jobs throughout the division are now being examined as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the Bush administration's alleged politicization of the Justice Department. The department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed last month that their inquiry, begun in March, will look at hiring, firing and legal-case decisions in the division.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan today to shine a renewed spotlight on decision-making in the division by questioning Schlozman's replacement, Wan Kim, about hiring practices and about its support for state voter-identification programs that could inhibit minority voting.

Democrats also plan to ask about the dwindling diversity of the staff in a division whose core mission includes fighting racial discrimination. The Bush administration, largely under Schlozman, hired seven members as replacements or additions to the 14-lawyer appellate section where Stevens, Calderon and Kwong worked. They included six whites, one Asian and no African Americans.

Schlozman's attorney, William Jordan, said his client did not want to comment on individual personnel decisions. Jordan said that Schlozman does not recall commenting on lawyers' voting records but at times encouraged cases to be reassigned to lawyers Schlozman considered to be very talented. Dugan declined to comment.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd also declined to respond to the allegations but did say that the appellate section's recent track record "speaks for itself." He cited statistics showing that when the section filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the past six years, it had an 87 percent success rate, compared with 61 percent success in the previous six years.

Schlozman arrived at the Justice Department in 2001 as counsel to then-Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson. A Kansas native and 1996 George Washington University law school graduate, Schlozman had clerked for two federal judges and worked alongside William Bradford Reynolds for two years in the Washington law firm Howrey Simon.

Reynolds, whom Schlozman has cited as a mentor, was a controversial assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Reagan administration. His confirmation for a higher department post was blocked by lawmakers in both parties who accused him of pursuing a radical interpretation of the nation's civil rights laws.

Schlozman's and Reynolds's career paths would end up having much in common.

In May 2003, Schlozman was appointed as a deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, and he quickly became enmeshed in hiring decisions previously made by section chiefs. He subsequently became the principal deputy, and in 2005 he was appointed acting assistant attorney general.

Appellate lawyers said that before Schlozman arrived, the small staff enjoyed a collegial work environment generally free of partisanship. Its lawyers concentrated on framing constitutional arguments for pending judicial decisions on hot-button issues such as voting rights, racial discrimination and religious freedom.

Schlozman made little effort to hide his personal interest in the political leanings of the staff, according to five lawyers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because -- like most of those interviewed for this article -- they still work at the department. He and his aides frequently asked appellate supervisors whether career lawyers handling politically sensitive cases were "on our team," the lawyers said.

Schlozman raised the question of partisan politics bluntly in the fall of 2004, they said, when asking appellate supervisors about the "loyalty" of division lawyer Angela Miller, who had once clerked for David. B. Sentelle, a conservative federal appeals judge. He told Miller's bosses that he learned that she voted for McCain in the 2004 Republican primary and asked, "Can we still trust her?"

He also warned section chief Diana Flynn that he would be keeping an eye on the legal work of another career lawyer who "didn't even vote for Bush," according to colleagues who said they heard Flynn describe the exchange. Miller told several of the colleagues that she considered Schlozman's remarks a form of intimidation, and started looking for another job, the lawyers said.

Schlozman and several deputies also took an unusual interest in the assignment of office responsibility for appellate cases and, according to the lawyers and one of the supervisors, repeatedly ordered Flynn to take cases away from career lawyers with expertise and hand them to recent hires whose résumés listed membership in conservative groups, including the Federalist Society.

Colleagues were especially surprised when Sarah Harrington, who graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and was one of the most highly regarded lawyers in the section, had four cases -- including one concerning religious freedom -- taken away at Schlozman's instruction.

In February 2005, Calderon, Stevens and Harrington were all passed over in favor of a recent Schlozman hire when they applied for a new supervisory job that Schlozman created.

In March, Calderon's cases were reassigned and she was given only deportation cases, as were some of her colleagues, several lawyers said. That spring, Schlozman told a resistant Flynn to transfer Stevens to the disability rights section. According to sources in the office, Schlozman instructed Flynn to tell Stevens that the transfer was related to performance and was her idea.

In June, Flynn told Stevens, who was then seven months pregnant, that she had to leave. According to sources familiar with both women's accounts, Flynn alerted Stevens that "the front office didn't want the transfer attributed to them" but that it was not Flynn's idea. Flynn declined to comment for this article.

That same month, Calderon began a six-month detail on the staff of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of Senate Judiciary Committee and a persistent critic of the Bush administration's judicial policies. Friends said she confided that she did not want to give up her Justice job but said she found being barred from appellate work frustrating.

In November, just before she was to return, sources said, the division's human resources office notified her that she had been permanently transferred out of the appellate section -- effective one month earlier. When she asked why, colleagues said, she was told that the office was so busy that it had to replace her when she was on detail.

In December, as Kwong prepared to return to the office after the birth of her first child, Flynn told her that she had been transferred to a much-lower-profile complaint-resolution section.

"When he said he didn't engage in political hiring, most of us thought that was just laughable," said one lawyer in the section, referring to Schlozman's June 5 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Everything Schlozman did was political. And he said so."

Today, Schlozman is gone from civil rights, but Calderon and Stevens are back in the appellate section, and Kwong will return next month, according to public records.

Stevens, who hired a lawyer and filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint after the transfer, reached a confidential settlement with the department after Schlozman left the division and returned to her old job in the fall of 2006. Justice officials agreed that Calderon and Kwong should return as well.

Schlozman was appointed interim U.S. attorney in Missouri in March 2006. But Congress subsequently started looking into why he was hired without any prosecution experience, and why he brought voter-fraud charges against a liberal voting organization five days before the election in a heated congressional race. Schlozman was reassigned this past March to a job in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Lieberman a bold-faced LIAR: promises then (pre-election 2006) vs "MORE WAR!" now....

Arianna Huffington does yeoman work highlighting JOE LIEBERMAN's CHRONIC LIES and DUPLICITY ... the work the parasitic DC punditocracy/plutocracy press-corpse REFUSES to do. (Because they are so corrupted by the war industry, the AIPAC lobby, the oil/energy industry, finance/banking/credit/insurance indusry, billion-dollar tax cuts for media conglomerates, & etc.)

============================================

Halloween Scoop: Lieberman Tries on Jack Murtha Mask in Effort to Trick Voters
by Arianna Huffington
October 23, 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/halloween-scoop-lieberma_b_32343.html


Have you decided what you are going to be for Halloween? Joe Lieberman has: he's going to dress up as Jack Murtha.

Lieberman has been trying out his costume on the campaign trail in Connecticut, desperately trying to trick voters into thinking that he's against the war in Iraq so he can treat himself to their support.

"No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do," said Lieberman last week. "I have been very critical of a lot of the mistakes the Bush administration has made in Iraq."

Lieberman clearly hopes that by paying lip service to being against the war he can confuse voters into forgetting that he was a lead sponsor of the resolution authorizing the war, has been a bellicose backer of the president's failed policy ever since -- repeatedly voting against efforts to change course in Iraq -- and continues to attack Ned Lamont for working to end the war.

And here's the really scary part: Lieberman's masquerade is working. After losing the Democratic primary, he dumped his war hawk outfit in the trash, slipped on his Murtha mask, and began to steadily increase his lead in the polls.

Of course, Joe Lieberman isn't the first politician to disguise himself with "I want to help end the war" rhetoric while continuing to subvert all genuine efforts to bring the war to an end.

Back in 1969, Richard Nixon attempted the same charade, talking like a man committed to bringing our troops home from Vietnam while aggressively working to expand the war. Indeed, the rhetorical parallels between Nixon in '69 and Lieberman in '06 are striking.

Here are a few examples. The Nixon quotes are all from a speech he gave on November 3, 1969 -- 3 years and 9,000 dead American soldiers before U.S. involvement in Vietnam actually ended. Lieberman's words are from this year's Senate campaign.



"I want to end the war." - Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I want to help end the war in Iraq." - Joe Lieberman, 8/11/06

"Many others -- I among them -- have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted." -- Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I have been very critical of a lot of the mistakes the Bush administration has made in Iraq." -- Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06

"It is a plan that will end the war and serve the cause of peace." -- Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I recently, again, issued a 10-point plan to get the job done [in Iraq]." -- Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06

"I want peace as much as you do." -- Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do." -- Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06


The Lamont campaign is planning to release a video tomorrow that will juxtapose clips of Nixon and Lieberman making these claims. The effect is spooky and unsettling. The ghosts of Nixon and his want-to-end-the-war lies (as well as of those 9,000 dead U.S. soldiers) should haunt the final two weeks of the Lieberman-Lamont race.

Don't let the masquerade fool you. A vote for Ned Lamont is a vote to end the war in Iraq; a vote for Joe Lieberman is a vote to stay the course.

Lieberman Update: Check out this new video of Joe Lieberman taking a page from the Richard Nixon playbook.

Make no mistake: Lieberman's AIPAC neo-con allies joined the "Swift Boat" brown-shirt smear-mob against John Kerry in 2004....

<< Fox, 77, is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and was deemed a "ranger" by Bush's 2004 campaign for raising at least $200,000. He is founder and chairman of the Clayton, Mo.-based Harbour Group, which specializes in the takeover of manufacturing companies.
Fox has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s
During a confirmation hearing last month, Kerry grilled Fox about why he had given $50,000 to a group that was "smearing and spreading lies" about him. Kerry seemed to be seeking an apology but Fox didn't budge, saying he simply gave when asked.
Big-money contributors are often rewarded with ambassador posts. Contributions to political groups are rarely considered grounds for protest for fear there would be a tit-for-tat when the White House changes parties.

But the chorus of opposition to Fox grew louder a day before the vote was set, when Kerry's Vietnam crew mates sent a letter Tuesday urging committee members to oppose Fox's nomination.

"In our judgment, those who finance smears and lies of combat veterans don't deserve to represent America on the world stage," said the letter signed by 11 Vietnam Swift Boat veterans who served WITH Kerry. >>
______________________________________

Make no mistake: it has taken only 50 or so years for the right-wing elements of the Israel-American (Jewish) lobby to embrace some of the BROWN-SHIRT intimidation and bully tactics that drove Adolf Hitler to power in the 1930s.

It turns out that St. Louis businessman SAM FOX was not only a donor to the SWIFT BOAT VETERANS AGAINST JOHN KERRY in election 2004, but that he was also the Chairman of the Jewish Republican coalition. And while "some may say" that comparing the Swift-boat veterans against Kerry with the para-military Brown-shirts of the early days of the Nazi Party in Germany is a hyperbolic exaggeration, the fact is that the Swiftboat vets against Kerry misled American TV viewers and voters into thinking that their veterans had served WITH John Kerry in combat, on small "Swift-boat" gunboats in the 'brown-water' US Navy efforts up and down South Vietnam rivers during the Vietnam war, when in fact not one of the Swift-boat Vets Against Kerry had ACTUALLY BEEN IN THE SAME UNIT, AT THE SAME TIME,in combat, as then Navy Lt. Kerry. The Swift-boat Vets Against Kerry were more opposed to Kerry's anti-war testimony before the US Senate, when Kerry returned to America from the war, than they were with his actual combat record.

The point being that the Swift Boat Veterans Against Kerry came perilously close in arguing, during election 2004, that the ONLY reason the United States "lost" the Vietnam War is because our military had been "STABBED IN THE BACK by cowards and traitors" such as (they claimed) Lt. Kerry had been in his anti-war testimony before Congress.

The SAME DAMN ARGUMENT that the Nazis made in the 1930s, that the ONLY reason Germany lost WWI was because she was "stabbed in the back" by traitors and cowards from within Germany. (In fact, Germany lost that war because she didn't sue for peace when she had a winning hand; almost all combat on the 'Western Front' was on French or Belgian soil; which allowed France, the British empire, and American anglophiles to portray Germany as a ruthless war-mad dictatorship bent on world conquest. Had Germany sued for peace while they were ahead, it would have been difficult for English and French leaders to continue the war. Germany's failure to sue for peace led to eventual American involvement in the war, which economic, military, and industrial efforts added to the Anglo-French alliance finally defeated the German army in late 1918.)

That is, the SWIFT BOAT VETERANS AGAINST KERRY, in 2004, repeated both the tactics of the vicious, deceptive politics of personal destruction ("smearing" a targetted victim); as well as the overall meme "America (Germany) ONLY lost the war, because she was stabbed in the back by traitors within!"

And it is ONLY because Mr. Sam Fox was looking for his reward for helping to FUND that SMEAR MOB - his ambassadorial nominanation to Belgium hitting the news this March 2007 - that we can connect-the-dots on the Jewish Republican Coalition and the Swift-boat Brown-shirt SMEAR MOB.

WHILE Mr. Fox's nomination by President Bush, in reward for helping Mr. Bush 'win' reelection in 2004 may not have anything to do with Senator Lieberman beyond the alliance of the AIPAC neo-cons with the smear-tactics of the Bush administration (which indeed is a strong bond that is seriously under-reported in the AIPAC dominated US press-media); we will point out that perhaps the Bush administration's most outspoken ally in the Senate, SENATOR JAMES INHOFE of Oklahoma, was PROUD to wear the title "HOLOCAUST DENIER" among his many labels:

<< "I have been called -- my kids are aware of this -- dumb, crazy man, science abuser, HOLOCAUST DENIER, villain of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthal, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. And I can just tell you that I wear some of those titles proudly." >>

THANK YOU, Mr. Fox and Senator Lieberman, for making it necessary for us to write this blog, documenting your own support for the radical-right agenda (Senator Inhofe's comment and link, above, a text-book exposition of the radical right-wing agenda in America) that is only 1/2 step away from being as blatantly anti-semitic as it is anti-voter's rights and anti-civil rights. Indeed, the neo-con wet-dream "P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act" is almost indentical, in many respects, with the ENABLING ACTS passed by the German parliament to allow Chancellor Hitler to bypass parliament and due process when confronting "Germany's enemies." But that is another story we will have to continue the next time Senator Lieberman and his AIPAC allies make it necessary for us to document the parrallels between America's "war on terror" in 2007 and Germany's war against "enemies" foreign and domestic in the 1930s.
_______________________________________

White House withdraws ambassador nominee
By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press Writer
Wed Mar 28, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070328/ap_on_go_pr_wh/kerry_swift_boat;_ylt=ApKLk_dJrKYG3jfoRsmtcrfMWM0F


WASHINGTON - More than two years after losing his bid for the White House, Democratic Sen. John Kerry exacted a measure of revenge against his political foes Wednesday by helping derail the diplomatic nomination of a Republican fundraiser.

President Bush withdrew the nomination of St. Louis businessman Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium after Democrats denounced Fox for his 2004 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

The group's TV ads, which claimed that Kerry, D-Mass., exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in Kerry losing the election.

Bush's action was announced quietly minutes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was to have voted on the nomination.

"His nomination would not have passed today if the vote had been called up," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

During a confirmation hearing last month, Kerry grilled Fox about why he had given $50,000 to a group that was "smearing and spreading lies" about him. Kerry seemed to be seeking an apology but Fox didn't budge, saying he simply gave when asked.

"Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth," Kerry said Wednesday. "He chose not to. The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination. I hope this signals a new day in political discourse."

Fox, 77, is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and was deemed a "ranger" by Bush's 2004 campaign for raising at least $200,000. He is founder and chairman of the Clayton, Mo.-based Harbour Group, which specializes in the takeover of manufacturing companies.

Fox has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s.

Big-money contributors are often rewarded with ambassador posts. Contributions to political groups are rarely considered grounds for protest for fear there would be a tit-for-tat when the White House changes parties.

But the chorus of opposition to Fox grew louder a day before the vote was set, when Kerry's Vietnam crew mates sent a letter Tuesday urging committee members to oppose Fox's nomination.

"In our judgment, those who finance smears and lies of combat veterans don't deserve to represent America on the world stage," said the letter signed by 11 Vietnam Swift Boat veterans who served with Kerry.

Fueling the political undertones was the presence of three Democratic presidential hopefuls on the committee — the chairman, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.; and Sens. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

"I had serious concerns about Mr. Fox's candor, judgment and qualifications for this important post, and I am pleased that the Bush administration acknowledged that it would not be able to muster the votes to confirm his nomination," Obama said.

Even after the Feb. 27 confirmation hearing, Kerry gave Fox an opportunity to show contrition in responses to several written follow-up questions. Fox insisted he did not know how his money would be spent or exactly what message the Swift Boats were pushing.

"I did it because politically it's necessary if the other side's doing it," Fox told Kerry

Surprise Surprise! Joe "treachery" Lieberman votes against Democrats... for Abu Ghraib, torture, corruption, and blank check for Bush-Cheney war...

<< After weeks of setbacks on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid said the moment was at hand to "send a message to President Bush that the time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war."

But Republicans - and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat - argued otherwise. >>


Senate Signals Support for Iraq Timeline
DAVID ESPO AP
March 27, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070327/us-iraq


WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled Senate narrowly signaled support Tuesday for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by next March, triggering an instant veto threat from the White House in a deepening dispute between Congress and commander in chief.

Republican attempts to scuttle the nonbinding timeline failed, 50-48, largely along party lines.

The vote marked the Senate's most forceful challenge to date of the administration's handling of a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops. It came days after the House approved a binding withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008, and increased the likelihood of a veto confrontation this spring.

After weeks of setbacks on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid said the moment was at hand to "send a message to President Bush that the time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war."

"It is a choice between staying the course in Iraq or changing the course in Iraq," he said.

But Republicans _ and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat _ argued otherwise.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a presidential hopeful, said "we are starting to turn things around" in the Iraq war, and added that critics "conceive no failure as worse than remaining in Iraq and no success worthy of additional sacrifice. They are wrong."

Bush had previously said he would veto any bill that he deemed an attempt to micromanage the war, and the White House freshened the threat a few hours before the vote _ and again afterward. "The president is disappointed that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto and has no chance of becoming law," it said.

Similar legislation drew only 48 votes in the Senate earlier this month, but Democratic leaders made a change that persuaded Nebraska's Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson to swing behind the measure.

Additionally, GOP Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon sided with the Democrats, assuring them of the majority they needed to turn back a challenge led by Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. "The president's strategy is taking America deeper and deeper into this quagmire with no exit strategy," said Hagel, the most vocal Republican critic of the war in Congress.

Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to the Capitol in case his vote was needed to break a tie, a measure of the importance the administration places on the issue.

The debate came on legislation that provides $122 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as domestic priorities such relief to hurricane victims and payments to farmers. Final passage is expected Wednesday or Thursday.

Separately, a minimum wage increase was attached to the spending bill without controversy, along with companion tax cuts that the Republicans have demanded as the price for their support of the increase in the federal wage floor. The House and Senate have passed different versions of the minimum wage-tax package, but they have yet to reach a compromise.

The House has already passed legislation requiring troops to be withdrawn by Sept. 1, 2008. The Senate vote assured that the Democratic-controlled Congress would send Bush legislation later this spring that calls for a change in war policy. A veto appears to be a certainty.

That would put the onus back on the Democrats, who would have to decide how long they wanted to extend the test of wills in the face of what are likely to be increasingly urgent statements from the administration that the money is needed for troops in the war zone.

"I hope he will work with us so we can come up with something agreeable for both" sides, Reid said at a post-vote news conference. "But I'm not anxious to strip anything out of the bill."

As drafted, the legislation requires a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days, with a nonbinding goal that calls for the combat troops to be gone within a year.

The measure also includes a series of suggested goals for the Iraqi government to meet to provide for its own security, enhance democracy and distribute its oil wealth fairly _ provisions designed to attract support from Nelson and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Despite the change, Pryor voted with Republicans, saying he would only support a timeline if the date were secret.

The vote was a critical test for Reid and the new Democratic majority in the Senate nearly three months after they took power. Despite several attempts, they had yet to win approval for any legislation challenging Bush's policies.

Republicans prevented debate over the winter on nonbinding measures critical of Bush's decision to deploy an additional 21,500 troops. That led to the 50-48 vote derailing of a bill that called for a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days but set only a nonbinding target of March 31, 2008, for the departure of the final combat forces.

Some Democrats said they would support the nonbinding timetable even though they wanted more. "I want a deadline not only for commencing the withdrawal of our forces but also completing it rather than a target date," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

"This provision represents a 90-degree change of course from the president's policy of escalation in the middle of a civil war," he said. "I'm confident once the withdrawal of our troops begins there will be no turning back."

Lieberman, who won a new term last fall in a three-way race after losing the Democratic nomination to an anti-war insurgent, depicted the vote as a turning point. He said the effect of the timeline would be to "snatch defeat from the jaws of progress in Iraq."

Lieberman's PROMISES to STICK with the Democratic Party.... 1-10 compiled for lazy media whores....

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/02/post_49.php

Lieberman threatens to DEFECT to the Rethuglican Party... again. AIPAC-Joe loves Bush-Cheney's war.....

Lieberman doing what he does best - acting like a Rethuglican, sabotaging Democrats...
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., left to right, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speak about Iraq on Capitol Hill, Feb. 1, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Lieberman Says War Vote Could Prompt Party Switch

By: Carrie Budoff
February 22, 2007
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2865.html

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.

Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.

"I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in a telephone interview. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with."

Asked whether that hasn't already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: "We will see how that plays out in the coming months," specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war.
More Info
For continuing coverage of this story visit The Crypt.

He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party.

"I hope we don't get to that point," Lieberman said. "That's about all I will say on it today. That would hurt."

Republicans have long targeted Lieberman to switch – a move that would give them control of the Senate. And Time magazine is set to report Friday that there is a “remote” chance Lieberman would join the GOP.