UPDATE: Joe's Site is down again! Damned hackers!
Crossposted at
Political Moneyball
Joe Lieberman (CT-CFL) finally launched his new website.
You may recall, his old site was "hacked" by crazy liberal bloggers and Lamont supporters on primary day, August 8th. By the time he gave his concession speech it was pretty well known that he either 1) forgot to pay his bill, or 2) didn't buy enough bandwidth to support the election day spike. I'm betting on the latter, simply because of how far out of touch he is with the netroots. Then again, Joe2006.com probably only got 7 hits a day before the primary, most of them Lamont bloggers doing opposition research. How could he have known? He needed more bandwidth?
Follow me over the flip, and I'll take a look at his Iraq page.
Anyway, Joe finally relaunched his site yesterday. Nearly 1 month after it "went down." A month! For perspective: It took me 11 minutes to set up this blog; it took me 25 minutes to develop my (now defunct) website at Archmere; my grandfather can send 600 emails in less than 5 minutes. In the immortal words of Wayne Cambell "Get with the net."
Poking around Joe2006.com shows how elementary it is. He's still not paying his web team very well. Lots of big buttons, not very colorful. Not many pictures. Not particularly senatorial, but neither is Joe. Note to Lieberman's web team: Big fonts take up space on the screen, but they also indicate the dearth of ideas in Joe's camp.
Interestingly enough, Markos points out that his issue page is bereft of any mention of Iraq. By the time I looked at his site this morning, Joe had a lengthy apologiafor his Iraq position. I don't have time to go through each paragraph and point out the inconsistencies, mistruths, and blatent lies, but I do want to key in on a few important issues.
Joe comes out swinging, saying that he has been a vocal critic of the president's handling of the war:
What I don't think is right, as I have said over and over again, are many of the Bush Administration's decisions regarding the planning for and execution of the war. The fact is, I have openly and clearly disagreed with and criticized the President for, among other things:
[snip]
--not having a plan to win the peace
So, with Joe criticizing the president's lack of direction in Iraq, surely he has a plan of his own. I mean, the Democrats have a plan. Shouldn't Joe's be the same?
Not quite. From the NY Times this morning:
Asked by reporters to give details of his stance on how to withdraw troops from Iraq, Mr. Lieberman said that he would have to delay their gratification a while longer.
If you take Lieberman at his word, that he thinks the president needs to have a plan for winning the peace and thereby bringing troops home, shouldn't Joe himself be advocating his plan to win and bring home the troops?
That comes in the thirteenth paragraph of the rant. What's more important than his plan?
Paragraph 6: Joe describes how he has visited Iraq and Walter Reed, and comforted soldiers and families. How do you plan to end their suffering, Joe? In a paragraph that should be about others, Joe manages to sound as selfish as ever: "I have been...I have been...I have visited...." Sorry you have to do your job and clean up after the President.
Paragraph 7: Joe parrots Republican Talking Point #2: If we pull out of Iraq now, it will become a hotbed for terrorism, just like Afghanistan in the 90s under the Taliban. Wait. Why didn't you think of that in 2002 when you voted for the war?
Paragraph 8: Joe says he understand lots of CT voters disagree with him (what was the big tip off Joe? That they told you August 8th they didn't want you to represent them anymore?), but that he doesn't "need to be lectured by my opponent or anyone else about the place of dissent in our democracy" because he stood up against the war in the 60s. Too bad that was 40 years ago, Joe. I'da voted for you then. But you need to start speaking for the CT voters of today.
Finally, we get his plan:
What we are doing is clearly not working. That is why I have called for new leadership and direction from the Pentagon. We also have to demand that the new Iraqi unity government do a better job of containing the sectarian violence, and working with our allies, the British in particular, we should convene an international crisis conference on Iraq, bringing in the Europeans and particularly the other Arab countries that are now worrying about what happens if Iraq collapses.
Sounds a lot like (my Senator) Joe Biden's plan. But he had that out in the field ages ago. Oh, it's like Biden's plan, except for one thing. According to Joe:
but if we rush to meet some arbitrary, pre-set political deadline, as bad as things are now they will definitely get much worse. There will be an all-out civil war in Iraq, Iran will surge in to control large parts of that country, there'll be a wider, regional war, and al-Qaeda and other jihadist terrorists will use Iraq as a safe haven from which to attack us and others.
Biden recognizes we need to get out ASAP, things are already "worse" and civil war is a question of semantics, not of timing. And al-Qaeda is already using Iraq as a training ground, Joe. And we have you to thank for it.
Joe Lieberman doesn't speak for the Democratic voters of CT.
Joe Lieberman has represented CT well for 18 years, but his views on the war and his continual support of the president prove he has grown away from his constituents.
Joe Lieberman cares more about himself and his own political future than he does about America, her troops, and her credibility in the world.
Joe Lieberman is a party of one
Throw the bum out
Support Ned Lamont