Bob Novak:

Mary Matalin, longtime Republican political operative and Vice President Dick Cheney’s adviser, seemed near tears on the Fox News Channel on Tuesday night as adverse voting returns for Sen. Joseph Lieberman came in from Connecticut.

[...]

That was a remarkable reaction to a liberal senator who has given President Bush scant help on any issue other than Iraq, from which he now also has retreated.

[...]

In key votes of the last Congress selected by the Almanac of American Politics, Lieberman followed the liberal line in opposing oil drilling in ANWR, Bush tax cuts, overtime pay reform, the energy bill, and bans on partial-birth abortion and same-sex marriage. Similarly, he voted in support of Roe vs. Wade and for banning assault weapons and bunker buster bombs. His only two pro-Bush votes were to fund the Iraq war and support missile defense (duplicating Sen. Hillary Clinton’s course on both).

Lieberman’s most recent ratings by the American Conservative Union were 7 percent in 2003, zero in 2004 and 8 percent in 2005. “Well deserved!” ACU Chairman David Keene told me. “I don’t see why any conservative should be overly concerned about Joe Lieberman’s plight.”

Lieberman had a perfect record, seven for seven, backing filibusters that blocked Bush judicial nominees. He voted against confirming Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Ah, those principled Republicans (and, for that matter, alleged libertarians upset about Lieberman’s defeat).

Cato’s David Boaz adds:

Only if you believe that continuing to support the war in Iraq outweighs all other issues combined can a conservative reasonably support Joe Lieberman. And apparently a lot of Republicans and conservatives are willing to toss aside his commitment to high taxes, higher spending, more regulation, and entitlement expansion in order to get that vote for Bush’s war.

The 30 percent of this country (and fifty or so percent of Congress) do so with an increasing vigor that borders on religious fanaticism. Lieberman is a massive government liberal. Lamont has actually shown signs of being quite a bit more fiscally conservative. That Republicans don’t seem to care, and are abandoning their own guy for big gub’mint Joe speaks volumes about where their priorities lie. It’s all about saving face on a war that’s been, to borrow a phrase, a miserable failure.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 11:23 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.