Come on over and get acquainted with Joe Lieberman's friends and allies!

Rove, Mehlman, Cheney,and "Vets for Freedom"

Joe Lieberman is no longer officially a Democrat in Connecticut. Perhaps that's why so many Republicans are rushing to his side. Karl Rove is calling for support, Dick Cheney is coordinating attack lines and RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is practically endorsing Joementum. Major GOP fundraisers are kicking in cash to the "Connecticut for Lieberman" campaign. They include hawkish supporters of Israel and influential DC lobbyists. After the primary, one major GOP donor in California sent a fundraising email to 2,000 of his political allies. And top operatives from the White House are behind a new group, Vets for Freedom, devoted to backing Lieberman's stay-the-course policy on Iraq. VFF is already making headlines as the successor to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Oddly enough, one of the advisors to VFF is former White House official Taylor Gross, who worked against Lieberman during the 2000 recount in Florida. ...Ari Berman in the Nation 

Rabbi Gellman, Bush supporter

Please understand, this is not a political rant. Yes, I support the war and yes I support and admire President George W. Bush, but I understand and respect those who have come to another conclusion about how best to fight the war on terror. My disappointment is with my people. I simply do not understand why so many Jews bailed on Joe. I cannot understand why Joe's percentage of the Jewish vote was not in the high 90s instead of the 54-57 percent range (according to Lieberman’s campaign). I have opinions on way too many things I don't know nearly enough about, but I know about Jews. I am a professional Jew, and yet if you asked me to explain why Jews did not vote for Joe the way blacks voted for Barack Obama or Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy I would not know what to tell you. In truth I am also bewildered about why Jews do not support President Bush more than the pathetic 22-26 percent (depending on which exit poll you look at) he received in 2004. Bush would win a landslide in Israel, and never once invited Yasir Arafat to the White House, but that is a bewilderment best left for another day. What has frozen me is the lack of support for Joe by Jews. Joe voted the Democratic line 90 percent of the time. Twenty-nine other Democrats also voted for the war and none of them was targeted (yet). Joe is the most famous Jewish politician of all time (unless you count former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia whose mother was Jewish). He is an observant Jew and obviously he was on the presidential ticket in 2000. He is modest and self effacing. He is moral and faithful. He is principled and intelligent ... and he is one of us! What more do you want of the guy?
Rabbi Gellman in Newsweek

CEO's of Enron, Worldcom, and Global Crossing

Senator Lieberman’s role dates back to 1993. This was the year when he led the charge against the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in its effort to require firms to treat stock options as an expense against profit. At the time, companies were able to issue stock options to employees and treat them on their books as though the options had no cost. FASB had become concerned because of the rapid growth in the use of stock options, especially in the tech sector. After carefully examining the issue, FASB issued new rules requiring that options be treated as an expense. Senator Lieberman led the counterattack, arguing that the new rules would depress stock prices. (Interesting thought – how can accurate accounting depress stock prices?) Lower stock prices would damage the tech sector and cost jobs. Lieberman managed to push through an 88-9 vote on a non-binding Senate resolution opposing the change. FASB got the message and backed down on its proposed rules change. The rest is history. The stock market, led by the tech sector, developed an enormous bubble. This bubble allowed for all sorts of bogus accounting practices which reached their culmination in the collapses of Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing. There was much more here than the inappropriate pricing of stock options, but this was a big part of the story. Dean Baker at American Prospect

Good ol' fashioned, racists and red baiters

Dan Gerstein, a longtime Lieberman aide whom the senator named as his new communications director after losing the Democratic primary to Lamont last week, took aim at Lamont's appearance Sunday on Fox News, calling it "a tad hypocritical" after having attacked Lieberman for appearing on the same network. But then Gerstein posed "a question" for Lamont. How could he expect to convince "moderate Democrats, Republicans, and most importantly, unaffiliated voters" that he "would be anything other than a rigid partisan rubber stamp in the Senate," the Lieberman spokesman asked, "when the only proof of his independence he can show is that he is slightly to the right of socialist Bernie Sanders on fiscal policy?" "Why should anyone outside the Sharpton/Kos wing of the Democratic Party believe Ned Lamont will represent their views in Washington?" he added. Gerstein had associated Lamont with three figures on the left: Sanders, the self-described socialist congressman from Vermont who caucuses with the House Democrats; the Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York civil rights advocate and former Democratic presidential candidate; and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of Daily Kos, one of the liberals' most popular political weblogs. The Lieberman aide's e-mail came the same day the Waterbury Republican-American editorialized about "Ned's true colors," describing the candidate's great-grandfather, Thomas W. Lamont, as not only chairman of J.P. Morgan but "the sugar daddy for the American Communist Party," and his uncle, Corliss Lamont, as "an unapologetic Stalinist and atheist." The newspaper also suggested that Lamont has "surrounded himself with people who may be characterized fairly as dedicated socialists and borderline communists," and noted that "race hustlers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton" had stumped for his victory. Gerstein said today that he never intended to red-bait Lamont, saying, "We never raised anything like what the Republican American did." "I was just being light," he said, adding that Sanders is "not a communist, but a socialist." Report in today's edition of CT's Journal-Enquirer via American Prospect