-Caveat Lector- Bush Or Bush Lite?
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7060 George v. Joe -- More Of An Echo Than An Alternative Robert Borosage is Co-Director of the Campaign For America's Future, and he has written on political, economic, and national security issues for publications including The New York Times and The Nation. Al Gore’s withdrawal from the 2004 presidential race instantly established Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman as a front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination. Lieberman gained national name recognition as Gore’s running mate in 2000. He is likely to win the critical fundraising "money primary" by attracting the largesse of the corporate wing of the party and the Jewish community. His combination of schmaltz and sanctimony played well on the 2000 campaign trail. He showed that he could turn his piety into an electoral asset and use his affability to win favor among the same reporters who were so put off by Al Gore. Lieberman would rather waltz than fight. So, what's not to like about Joe? Well, once you get beyond his style and his Big Money prowess, he looks nearly identical to George W. Bush on most key issues: Iraq, trade, missile defense, homeland security, corporate tax favors and faith-based gestures. He’s positioned himself to run to the right of Bush on war and the military and to his left on the environment and abortion. Whether this poll-driven Republican-lite posture can work politically remains to be seen. What’s clear, however, is that at a time when the nation desperately needs a fundamental debate about core issues -- how to meet real security threats, how to get the economy working for working people, how to defend America without trampling the very liberties that define America -- Lieberman would rather waltz than fight. On national security, Bush has put forth a radical doctrine of pre-emption and unilateralist arrogance that undermines this nation’s security. The nation would be well served by a Democratic candidate who would lay out a real security policy that challenges Bush’s effort to turn America into a global warden. But Lieberman’s central critique of the administration is that it hasn’t been militarist enough. He has urged taking out Saddam Hussein alone, without U.N. sanction. He criticized the president’s faith-based missile defense deployment only for not wasting even more billions on deploying a system that doesn’t work. Striving to look tough on terror, Lieberman championed the homeland security bill that even his acolytes at the Democratic Leadership Committee dismiss as a "phony debate over the makeup of a department that won't solve the problem anyway." Similarly, Bush’s economic policy -- tax cuts for the wealthy, favors for the Fortune 500 crowd, cutbacks in domestic public investment and corporate- centered trade accords -- is undermining America’s economic prospects. His initiatives are simply out of step with what the country needs as it struggles with global stagnation, growing inequality, an unprecendented corporate crime wave, an unsustainable trade deficit and massive foreign debt. Lieberman won’t pose a fundamental challenge here, either. As leader of the pro- business DLC, he has championed capital gains tax cuts, corporate trade and domestic austerity. As chair of the committee investigating Enron and the corporate scandals, he won notoriety mostly for defending off- the books stock options while warning Democrats not to engage in “economic class conflict.” In the mid-'90s, Lieberman helped fend off Clinton regulators who wanted companies to account for stock options that gave executives enormous incentives to cook the books, boost short-term stock prices and plunder their own companies. Yet when it became apparent that many were doing just that, Lieberman continued to argue that stock option plans were a way of sharing corporate growth with workers. He did a slight retraction when admitted that it was "disappointing" to learn that the vast bulk were lavished on the top floor, not on the shop floor. His long-standing staunch defense of privilege may have cemented his fund- raising appeal with the $1000-a-plate dinner crowd but it did nothing to help the country deal with the corporate crime wave. At a time when the middle class is under ever greater pressure, Lieberman has been a sunshine soldier on issues vital to working families. With schools overcrowded, vital public services like sewers, water systems and highways aging and in disrepair, health care costs soaring, and basic public health capacities ailing, Bush’s cuts in vital public investments must be opposed. But Lieberman is a Coolidge Democrat who champions domestic austerity. He would roll back Bush’s tax cuts not to invest in vital needs, but to return the budget to surplus. This leaves Bush arguing for tax cuts and growth and Lieberman arguing for austerity. That’s both bad policy and bad politics. At a time when the middle class is under ever greater pressure, Lieberman has been a sunshine soldier on issues vital to working families. With public schools overwhelmed by the largest surge of students since the baby boom, he joined with the president to pass sound-bite education reforms without resources. He supported privatizing Social Security until he was nominated vice president, and after a previously unpublished letter renouncing his former views surfaced. A darling of the pharmaceutical companies and insurance industry, he opposed Clinton’s health-care plan, frowns at price controls on prescription drugs, champions turning Medicare over to HMOs and has spoken well of vouchers. Lieberman also isn’t exactly a warrior for civil rights and civil liberties. Until selected as Gore’s number two, he joined with Republicans in opposing affirmative action, even after Bill Clinton decided to defend it. With prisons so overcrowded that Republican governors are pushing early release programs, he continues to posture about locking more people up longer. Lieberman joins with William Bennett as a self-appointed cultural scold, taking on the easy targets of rap lyrics and violent video games. With Ashcroft using 911 to push through dramatic assaults on rights, Lieberman was linked with Lynne Cheney as co-chair of a group that launched a post-911 effort to hunt professors who dared question U.S. policy. Lieberman’s central critique of the administration is that it hasn’t been militarist enough. Lieberman argues that all this is good politics -- big on defense, easy on corporations, tough on crime, for fiscal responsibility. We’ll see how it plays with the public, but one thing is clear: Lieberman won’t put forth an agenda that blocks the dangerous road the current administration is on. Against Bush, he’ll offer more of an echo than an alernative. Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatch and get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone else! You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never distribute your information to any other entity. Published: Jan 08 2003 A<:>E<:>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article has to stand on its own merits. 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