Y'all know how Joe Lieberman and his enablers have been playing the race-baiting game, castigating Ned Lamont for -- GASP! -- having
Al Sharpton come to campaign for him? (Never mind that Al Sharpton is a kingmaker in the NY metro area and much of the rest of the Northeast.)
Well, guess what: Lieberman's cozied up to a guy who makes Al Sharpton look like Mother Teresa -- and he cozied up to him long after the rest of the world, including every black leader worthy of the name, rejected the man and his bigoted, anti-semitic stances.
I refer, of course, to Louis Farrakhan. (More after the jump.)
From Joe Conason's hot-off-the-press Salon.com article
"Whatever's Best for Holy Joe":
The Lieberman campaign is trying to frighten white voters in Connecticut -- and Democrats in Washington -- by reminding them over and over again that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson support Lamont. This week, the senator's aides told the New York Times that playing the two African-American preachers off against Lamont will enhance Lieberman's appeal on an independent ballot line. "Primary night was the first time that many Connecticut voters saw Lamont on TV, and he's surrounding himself with two of the more divisive and problematic figures in the Democratic Party," said Dan Gerstein, the Lieberman campaign's communications director.
It's true that Jackson and Sharpton, who bustled onto the podium the evening of the primary to grab their share of the Lamont spotlight, tend to be polarizing figures. But what if Lamont had praised an even more polarizing black leader? What would Lieberman say if his rival had reached out to someone really outrageous, like Louis Farrakhan?
If he were honest, he'd exclaim "Great idea!" -- because that's exactly what he said six years ago.
Lieberman can hope to get away with his racially inflammatory strategy only if everyone else forgets not only his habit of sucking up to Jackson and Sharpton but his history of stroking the most bigoted black leader in the world. Evidently he and Gerstein (who was also his spokesman during the 2000 presidential campaign) expect that nobody will mention the embarrassing episode when Lieberman's ambition (and opportunism) led him to praise Farrakhan. Given the laziness and amnesia that afflict the national press corps, they may be right.
After all, the truth about Lieberman's past flattery of Farrakhan (and Sharpton and Jackson) flatly contradicts the mainstream definition of him as a principled statesman. For someone who insistently presents himself as a moral absolutist, the "conscience of the Senate" is in fact a ruthless practitioner of situational ethics. Not so long ago, he liked to talk about his warm conversation with Jackson on the day that he became a major party's first Jewish vice presidential nominee, his eyes moist and his voice emotional as he recalled Jackson saying "something that went to my heart" about breaking down barriers for everyone. Not so long ago, he called Sharpton his "dear friend" and "brother" during the Democratic presidential primary debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and Fox News.
But that was then, and this is now -- and Lieberman is nothing if not a creature of the moment. When someone like Sharpton, Jackson or even Farrakhan can be used to his advantage, he eagerly sidles up and pours on the unction. And when Sharpton and Jackson turn up on the other side, he demonizes them with equal sincerity, which is to say none. Divider or uniter, friend or foe, principle or pander: It all depends on what is best for Holy Joe.
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UPDATE: I just found out something really interesting this morning:
One of the more generous Minnesota Republican donors in the 2006 cycle is none other than Daniel Rosen. Rosen is the Minneapolis attorney who's been leading the attacks against Keith Ellison while pretending to be an allegedly "non-partisan" member of the Twin Cities Jewish community. Somehow, the news of Rosen's Republican ties never managed to make it into any of the local stories or GOP blogger posts that cited his attacks on Ellison.
And for the final cherry on the irony -- or is it hypocrisy? -- sundae, I don't recall Mr. Rosen ever coming out to attack Joe Lieberman for Lieberman's sucking up to Louis Farrakhan in the spring of 2000, which as I've already noted here was long after Keith Ellison and pretty much every reputable national black leader had renounced and denounced Farrakhan and his anti-semitic views.