Our Own Tiny Axis of Evil

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Sen. Joe Lieberman achieves a rare feat in the history of puckering up to powerful backsides—-not only fronting for Bush and Cheney but blowing a kiss to the Journal’s soon-to-be-owner Rupert Murdoch with an OpEd urging Congress to “respond” to Iran’s “offensive against us throughout the Middle East.”

While the rest of our lawmakers, including endangered Republicans, are trying to disentangle from Iraq, Independent Joe, safely reelected last year after being repudiated in the Democratic primary, has a new mess for us to jump into in his favorite part of the world.

“The Iranian government, by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East,” he proclaims. “America now has a solemn responsibility to utilize the instruments of our national power to convince Tehran to change its behavior, including the immediate cessation of its training and equipping extremists who are killing our troops.”

This follows up on his chest-pounding last month on CBS’ Face the Nation that “we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq."

As a weakened President Ahmadinejad tries to cope with unrest in Iran, Lieberman keeps handing him rhetoric to unite his country against the threat of the Great Satan.

Way to go, Joe. You're getting to be a 97-pound gorilla. Do you have anything in mind for North Korea?

Bloomberg the Iffy Independent

As the New York Mayor’s departure from the Republican Party stirs political excitement, it may help to remember his role in giving us another Independent on the national scene last year--Joe Lieberman.

After the voters of Connecticut repudiated Lieberman in their party primary for his cheer-leading the war in Iraq and the Republicans nominated a non-entity who would draw only 10 percent of their vote, it was Bloomberg who supplied the crucial money and manpower to elect him as an “Independent” who is now holding his former party hostage over control of the Senate and cheer-leading for a war in Iran.

If Bloomberg’s philosophy as a technocrat extends to this kind of impartiality about the most passionate issue of our time, what price Independence? His leadership on gun control is impressive, but then again his embrace of Gov. Arnold on the other coast is not reassuring.

Bloomberg is too intelligent to remain a Republican, but does he have the heart and commitment for anything more?

Political Punks

A useful word that has fallen into disfavor, “punk” should be revived for the current political discourse over Iran.

The loose-lipped Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad certainly fits the primary definition of an inexperienced, combative young thug.

Over here, we have his aging American counterpart Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has never seen a Middle East confrontation he didn’t like, today spouting off on CBS’ Face the Nation that “we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq."

Although prudently ruling out a “massive ground invasion” now, Jolting Joe insists, "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."

Secondary definitions of punk include “dry, decayed wood” and “poor, of worthless quality.” It’s a very useful word.

Troops Let Lieberman Down

For all this time that he has been beseeching Congress not to let down the troops, Joe Lieberman goes to Iraq to visit our fighting men and they let him down.

One of his own constituents, in fact, admits “not speaking from the heart” by failing to tell Joe what he told a reporter, “It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at.” Now the Senator told CNN he is “really upset.”

If Lieberman wants to hear someone “speaking from the heart,” he has a standing invitation to visit me. I’m one of his constituents, and he can read this as a sample of what he would hear.