An open letter to Joe Lieberman
Dear Senator Lieberman:
Now that you have just been jilted and left standing at the altar, you have the chance to warn the rest of America. You have the unique and intimate experience with the candidate that compares to none. You have the clearest view inside the mind of McCain and can share what the real character of the man is because you were there when the chips were down – and then dumped!
You were to be John McCain’s beloved, the chosen one.
You were so faithful, so supportive at every turn; A loyal companion on trips, providing helpful information to your other half, speaking out in his defense when criticized, feeling his pain as your own.
Don’t get bamboozled into lying for your former love, speaking untruths about his record, beliefs and adversaries. Don't get into the gutter with his friends and smear good people through distortions, untruths and childish name calling.
Make redemption, repair and reconciliation for the country and the world your legacy, Joe. When you stand before the maker, Joe, won’t you want a clean heart in how you served your country in promoting its better self and helped it turn away from old ideas of fear, mistrust and frozen world view?
Only you have the visceral scars from standing in the way of the office McCain covets.
Listening to his religious-right handlers again, he has chosen, for expediency, a simple girl of loudly-proclaimed "Christian" faith who can freely tell untruths, spew insults and belittles higher-education and any hint of sophistication. Can that really help our country?
McCain has no plans for improving America and keeping it competitive in the years ahead. You know we can’t go backward to the 1950’s when America was more secure in it’s own arrogant isolation, stomping around the world, huffing and puffing selfishly, "freedom" and "America first." That just isn’t going to work anymore. You know that we will not remain an economic and military superpower much longer, if only because of sheer population numbers, let alone, smart, long-term planning countries like China and our consumer and war debts. We need to share the planet, be diplomatic, think and act in terms of what is good for all.
You’re an old man Joe. You know how old men think when they try to hang on to something they feel that is owed to them. It’s obvious and pitying when you see someone entrenched in the past and not able to see new realities and adapt.
In Barack Obama, your former party, the Democratic one, is offering a candidate like we’ve never had before at a time never so appropriate as now. A vigorous, young, law professor who has always worked to improve lives of those usually forgotten, and generate interest and participation in the voting process which we all say makes our country stronger because it is better represented. From the intensely personal to the global and cerebral, Senator Obama can identify with Americans who live modestly, maybe from single-parent homes, ethnic minorities seeking the American dream, those who value higher education and others.
Talk about character development! Can you imagine having to have made the adjustments that he has had to make in childhood? Moving to a different country, changing schools, learning new languages and cultures, exposure to diplomats, aid workers and others from still more countries, being bi-racial in America, being separated from your mother (the only parent you've known) at age 11?
At a time when our nation’s Constitution has been trampled and our other government institutions mortally damaged by corruption and cronyism, what fortune to have a Constitutional law professor handy as president! All evidence shows that Senator Obama has and can ably lead others, is thoughtful, even-tempered, methodical and uses dispassionate reasoning to solve problems.
The political party that has created a terrible mess is asking to continue making it. Is that what you really want for this country, Joe? Do you want someone in charge who shoots from the hip and asks questions later or never? Do you want to promote a man who betrayed his own principles to kiss the rings of those he despised in order to compete? Should we celebrate a once humble warrior who now trades on what he once disdained in others and incites us to fear and hate? Do you really think a Democrat in the White House would let harm come to one of our closest allies - really, Joe?
Put your country first, Joe, tikun olam. Not the man who misled you, not your career, not a foreign land where your heart and paranoia lay. Tell the truth Joe. Your country needs you.