Remora

Back in the bad old days of the last election, LI opposed Al Gore for a number of reasons. One of them was purely political. The line of descent from Clinton to Gore pointed to one thing: by electing a rightwing Democrat, the party would naturally go even more to the right, thus ensuring the nomination of an even more rightwing Democrat after Gore. Once the bridge starts falling in the river, you can't hold it up from one side -- to put it as enigmatically as possible.

Well, Gore was elected -- although, as we know, the election was stolen from him. And, showing how much we know, the unelected Prez swung to the left. Gore's statements for the last year have been music to our ears.

However, our fundamental claim still stands -- and Lieberman is proof of it. The editor of Tom Paine, Robert Bosage, takes an acidic look at the man he calls Bush-lite -- although Bush himself could more appropriately be labeled Bush-lite. Perhaps we should label Lieberman Bush-ultra-lite. There isn't an issue on which Lieberman is any good. Oh, except of course his staunch support for the one thing rightwing Dems still stand for -- the right for middle class women on the East and West coast to abort. In the stretches of America where there is nary a doctor to perform the abortion, this right is a mockery. Never mind that. Never mind that there may just be other medical care issues out there -- how about the right of a woman to get decent health care subvented by the state? and the right of a man to get the same thing? No, that isn't going to play in this script.

The long list of Lieberman's idiocies is covered by Bosage. We have a particular dislike for Lieberman based on his longterm defense of the Ceo-accounting biz complex. After all, Lieberman was the guy who threatened to punish the SEC if they made a stink about accounting practices during the boom years in the 90s. In the hullabaloo about corporate looting last year, Lieberman contributed an editorial to the NYT defending the eccentric status of stock options -- that is, defending that accounting procedure which allows not expensing them. His defense of encouraging stock options was pretty comic -- it was that they were a crucial incentive and spur to the average worker. Oh yeah. Bosage does a nice number on Lieberman's general economic policy positions:

"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."

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.