Bring Back Joe

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Senator Lieberman is a marked man in Democratic circles these days.

He represents one of the few subjects both the Democratic senate leadership and the so-called progressive NetRoots can agree upon: his support of John McCain must be punished, they say. Senate Majority Leader Reid has threatened to strip the Connecticut senator of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee should he address the Republican National Convention, like a former Democratic senator from Georgia, Zell Miller, did in 2004.

One prominent Democrat, however, can save Mr. Lieberman — Barack Obama. Since emerging onto the national scene four years ago, Senator Obama has emphasized his ability to unite Americans across the political spectrum.

If Mr. Obama wants to demonstrate his willingness to change the way Washington does business and to overcome “the politics of division and distraction” — both of which he has vowed repeatedly — he should offer Mr. Lieberman a political pardon and ask Mr. Reid to allow Mr. Lieberman to keep his chairmanship, if Mr. Obama is elected president. While a new president lacks the power to interfere in an internal senate matter, Mr. Obama’s voice would carry weight with the senate leadership.

With the approach of the Republican parley in Minnesota in early September, the issue will ripen. Instead of speaking in favor of purging Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Obama could offer to reserve a decision on the matter until after the election. Then, if elected, he could urge Mr. Reid to keep Mr. Lieberman within the ranks.

Such magnanimity would not reflect the usual political rules of either Washington or Chicago, Mr. Obama’s hometown, where the typical approach to fallen foes is to cut their legs off and bury them so far under that they are silenced permanently. Mr. Lieberman is, after all, campaigning on behalf of Mr. McCain, often at the candidate’s side. And, according to published reports, Mr. Obama, confronted Mr. Lieberman on the floor of the senate after the Connecticut senator participated in a conference call criticizing Mr. Obama’s foreign policy positions. Among Mr. Obama’s concerns, according to Newsweek, was Mr. Lieberman’s failure to successfully rebut the false allegation that he is a Muslim.

As unlikely as an act of forgiveness might seem now, it would be in keeping with the spirit of Mr. Obama’s rhetoric. “There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said during his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

Permitting Mr. Lieberman, the party’s 2000 vice presidential candidate, to remain within the Democratic caucus would display Mr. Obama’s commitment to those very words. Mr. Lieberman’s issues with his fellow Democrats, after all, began when his strong support of the Iraq War prompted a primary challenge from an anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont.

When Mr. Lamont won Connecticut’s Democratic primary, many leading Democrats favored the upstart over the incumbent who ran as an “Independent Democrat.” Mr. Obama supported Mr. Lieberman during the primary fight but, like other Democrats, later backed Mr. Lamont in the general election. The ill will prompted by the electoral fight, coupled with Mr. Lieberman’s 2007 speech at Johns Hopkins University critiquing the Democratic Party, solidified the split. Despite all the bad blood between them, Mr. Obama could heal those wounds. Mr. Lieberman, after all, epitomizes the kind of “patriot” who supports the Iraq War, the kind of support an Obama presidency requires.

In turn, Mr. Lieberman could be useful both symbolically and practically to Mr. Obama. An unpunished Mr. Lieberman would show Americans that Mr. Obama is sincere in his desire to bring the country together; hawkish Democrats and other ideological foes would realize they too have a stake in the administration.

In practical terms, a centrist senator with friends in both parties can help a new president succeed legislatively. During President Clinton’s administration, the senior senator of Louisiana, John Breaux, a Democrat, helped the president pass the welfare reform bill and was a key vote in the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Pardoning Mr. Lieberman, in effect, also would confirm another reality — that he does vote Democratically. Aside from his foreign policy positions, Mr. Lieberman voted with the Democratic Party on climate change, labor, and the economy, a fact that even Mr. Reid’s office has recognized. This is a key distinction between Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Miller, with whom he is often compared.

It’s more than plausible, of course, that should Mr. Obama win the presidency, he would, like most successful candidates, reward his friends and punish his enemies. A new and unifying style of politics, in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, whom Mr. Obama often invokes, would bring Mr. Lieberman back into the fold.

Mr. Gitell (gitell.com) is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.


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